Love Others?

The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Yet many of us have not learned how to love ourselves or due to our past we don't feel good enough to be loved. Many don’t like themselves. We spend a lot of time trying to change something about us or without realizing it we gravitate toward another that preys on our low self image.

So many people today don’t realize their value. To underestimate our value or to have a low self image is an insult to God.

You are fearfully and wonderfully made. Fearfully is English being translated from the Hebrew word yârê which is sometimes translated as reverence. To be reverent means, according to Webster, "to regard with profound respect and honor." The meaning of Psalm 139:14 seems to be that we are so amazingly made that we should have a reverent fear of the Lord who created us.

No one else on planet earth has your fingerprints. They are exclusive to you. No two humans are genetically identical. You were not meant to look like anyone else or act like anyone else other than you. God created you specific. It is in being unique that you have the opportunity to be what nobody else can be. That is something to be embraced and celebrated.

See yourself through the eyes of God. He knew you before you were born Jer. 1:5 Gal. 1:15 and he knew every mistake you would make yet he loved you with more love than you can comprehend so much that he sent his son to die for you. That is proof of just how valuable you are to God that he would let his son pay that kind of price for you to be able to have a relationship with him.

Sin had separated us from God and the atoning blood of Jesus was the only way for him to have a relationship with his fearfully and wonderfully made creation. By receiving this undeserved gift, we can now be in a relationship with God and an heir with Jesus. Ga. 4:6-7

Love the person in the mirror, God does. You have specific attributes and gifts that God designed in you for his purpose. Before you can be fully effective you must learn to truly love yourself and only then can you love others as yourself.

IHS

Naomi Pemberton