By Tanya Jolliffe
Beginning to step back out into the world after the pandemic has proven to be way more daunting than I would have expected. The civil unrest and inhumanity on display have not helped the situation any.
A couple of weeks ago, I turned to Romans 13 as I tried to understand the resistance to wearing a mask when going out in public. When I got to the end of verse 9, I was stopped in my tracks as the words reverberated in my mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. Suddenly, the Spirit within me began to whisper, “How can people love their neighbor if they don’t love themselves first?”
The next day during my morning devotional time, I was reading in the book of James. Guess what jumped out at me? James 2:8 which reads like this in the NIV, if you keep the royal law found in Scripture, “love your neighbor as yourself,” you are doing right.
Here the text is quoted from the Old Testament law in Leviticus 19:18 which reads, “Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.” Ok, so love does not seek revenge or bear a grudge. That reminded me of 1 Corinthians 13 and its comprehensive explanation of biblical love.
As I continued to ponder the words of James 2:8 a little further, “royal law” rolled around in my head. As I contemplated those words further, I was reminded of Jesus’ teaching of the Scripture in Matthew 22:34-40 and its reference as the great commandment. There, Jesus taught about two interconnected laws, the first being to love God and the second to love your neighbor. Both commands together summarize all the Ten Commandments. I referenced the same teaching shared in Mark and Luke as well. After a quick search, I found this command, this great command, is repeated eight times in the Bible. If the Scripture is taught by Jesus, recorded in three different Gospels, recorded twice by Paul, and once by James, it must be important.
After referencing each of these eight listings, I was once again struck by the last portion of the phrase, “as yourself” and my thoughts quickly went back to the question from a few days prior. Can people love their neighbors if they don’t love themselves first?
As I continued to go about my week I kept thinking about this question off and on. As I did, the song “Love Moved First” by Casting Crowns came to mind. The words from the bridge of the song kept repeating in my mind, “Your cross is the proof, love made the first move.” Those lyrics were quickly followed by the chorus, “When anybody else would’ve turned and left me at my worst, Love moved first.” Jesus loved me so much that he couldn’t leave me at my worst. He cleaned me up and re-presented me to the world.
As the words from the song swirled around in my head I was drawn back to the question. Perhaps that is part of the problem in our world. If people don’t see their worth, are riddled with guilt, or believe they are undeserving, wouldn’t it make sense that they might not be able to prevent themselves from viewing others through the same lens? Wouldn’t they show less empathy or use more judgment with others because of an inability to love them unconditionally because they aren’t loving themselves unconditionally first?
So how do we love ourselves unconditionally first? We only need to go back to 1 Corinthians 13 to see that we must start by being patient and kind with ourselves. We must be mindful not to dishonor or discredit ourselves for past or current mistakes. Jesus died on the cross to forgive us for those mistakes. His cross is proof that He made the first move to forgive our mistakes. Even if we are living with the consequences of the mistake, love keeps no record of wrongs. We can love ourselves by protecting ourselves from those that don’t have our best interest at heart. We can trust in the Lord, hope in the plans He has for us, and persevere because love never fails.
As the Casting Crowns song states so well, He didn’t wait for us to find our way to him, he came running after us instead of leaving us at our worst. Love moved first. We need to follow that example, turn toward gratitude, and embrace the love we have been given. When we do, we will learn to love ourselves first so we can truly love our neighbors as well.
