Love Yourself
Let’s keep looking at Jesus’ words in Mark 12:29-31…
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength…AND…You shall love your neighbour as yourself. There are no other commandments greater than these.
The commandment of Jesus is saying; notice the pattern in yourself for self-love. The constant mindfulness of self, or self-awareness, that you live with, is normal. It’s a very normal, healthy, human thing, to want to desire to care for yourself - or offer to yourself - some self-love. We need to be fully present in listening to the needs of our body. To feed it, to rest it, to clean it, to cover it when it is cold, to cool it when it is hot. By all means, work hard, but also take times of rest and holiday so that our strength can be replenished and our mental, emotional and physical lives can be renewed.
Our body is a gift from God; our mental and emotional life is linked to maintaining a healthy routine of self-care for our personal needs.
To neglect yourself is, in itself, a sign of an unhealthy self-regard; which is not what God is desiring for us. Of course, there are unhealthy levels of selfish interest, or even narcissism, that can create an imbalance. An over active or pre-occupation with self is not healthy; but that is not what we are talking about today.
What Jesus was saying was true Love is being ‘present’ for others in heart, soul, mind and strength, without distraction; just like you natively are ‘present’ for yourself.
It’s a big idea that sounds really challenging to actually do.
Why does Jesus command this? God is wanting us to mirror His ways. His ways are to become our ways.
Why? Because we are designed in His image and likeness and, in the pattern of Jesus, our lives, our relationships and our world around us will work BEST when we bring His ways into the ways we live.
The reason things don’t work is we don’t fully adopt the patterns of heaven. We partially agree with God, and, at best, choose a hybrid of how to live under His guidance, rather than fully give ourselves to His patterns of thinking and being.
God lives by the pattern that Jesus commanded in Mark Chapter 12.
God fully loves, within Himself, with all His heart, mind, soul and strength.
Let me explain.
The Father loves the Son. Fully. Gives Himself, without hesitation or reservation, to the will of the Son. But equally, and instantly, the Son gives Himself, without hesitation or reservation, to the will of the Father. All the while, the Spirit, in the same act of submission and love, gives Himself to the will of the Father and the Son, while They, instantly and without hesitation, return that same love and submission to the Spirit, and act according to the mind and will that He also offers Them.
Theologians speak of the life of God as a dance; a perpetual act of constant self-giving and self-receiving as One submits their will to the will of the Other, while simultaneously being filled with the affirmation of the Other, as They too offer their will back immediately and simultaneously in perfect union and total self-giving.
In this way, all Three Persons of the Trinity are co-equal, and co-eternal; in perfect union and perfect expression. One God in Three Persons.
God is first and foremost a relationship. A perfect, loving relationship of Persons; that then takes action in the world. Its why the Bible says God IS love. He doesn’t just display or give love. HE IS LOVE. His very being is composed of Love. His actions within Himself is one of self-giving, self-sacrificing, preference for the Other. He is always moving away from Himself, away from self-interest and self-exaltation, towards the good of the Other. And He does that within Himself. Constantly. Consistently. Continually.
God demonstrates perfect self-love within Himself.
Of course, when He then decided to create the world, nothing changed within the practice of His being. He created the earth and humankind to join Him in this same dance or practice of LOVE: the practice of perfect union accomplished through total submission to the needs of the Other. God freely gave Himself to ensure His Creation would forever be included and always exist within the dance of self-giving that He Himself perpetually and eternally existed in. Out of the same pattern of self-love within the Godhead comes God’s inclusive and enveloping love for Creation. For you and I. The patterns of selfless divine love are always moving towards an ‘other.’
Why? Because self-giving is the DNA of divine love.
Therefore, God was always going to give Himself to the world. Totally. Flawlessly. Completely. So, He entered the world as a Man; forever given to be both human and divine. Forever changed and forever joined to His creation. The Bible says, God so loved…that He gave.
God loves us as He loves Himself.
The same pattern of love that operates within the divine life of God, within the relationship of Father, Son and Spirit, reaches out to us, envelopes us and equally includes us. It means, in Jesus, we are as equally included in the Godhead, just as God includes Himself in all His 3x co-equal and co-eternal parts. From this place of inclusion, He invites us to participate, from within our unified position with Him, in the same self-giving, self-sacrificing act of love towards others.
With this as our background; when Jesus is giving us His command in Mark 12 He is really giving us the blueprint on the divine operating system, the way of being that has always been practiced within the Godhead, that the entire earth and all of Creation was founded on and that we are being invited to participate in.
Selfless, cruciform love is God’s powerhouse; the engine room of His awesome, majestic and truly breathtaking power that overcomes fear, that consumes all things, and that triumphs in all situations.
In Jesus’ commandment, He is saying…
“Come be like Us. It’s what you were designed for.”
“That fear that you’re struggling with - only exists - because your self-interest is stronger than your submission and abandonment to the divine pattern of LOVE.”
“That relational breakdown, that social anxiety, that fear of failure, that unforgiveness and bitterness that is crippling you…is dissolved in the practice of unconditional, faithful presence with others.”
Why? Because Perfect love casts out fear.
Fear is self-occupied; Love is others occupied.
Fear is possessive and suspicious; territorial and defensive.
Love gives it all away. Doesn’t think through the lens of selfish possession or loss.
Love never experiences loss; because it never possessed the thing in the first place.
So, He who lives from the place of divine love is therefore truly free. Jesus is saying…
”Allow your fear to be swallowed up by My example and My practices of self-sacrifice.”
He says -
“great love lays down its life for its friends.”
“If you truly desire to find your life - lose it.”
