Love Your Neighbor as Yourself?

[WIP]

18 You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19:18 NKJV

16 Now behold, one came and said to Him, “Good Teacher, what good thing shall I do that I may have eternal life?”
17 So He said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. But if you want to enter into life, keep the commandments.”
18 He said to Him, “Which ones?” Jesus said, “‘You shall not murder,’ ‘You shall not commit adultery,’ ‘You shall not steal,’ ‘You shall not bear false witness,’
19 ‘Honor your father and your mother,’ and, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ ”
Matthew 19:16-19 NKJV

The phrase, "Love your neighbor as yourself" is repeated also in the following places.
Matthew 22:39
Mark 12:31
Romans 13:9
Galatians 5:14
James 2:8

A question I have about this is, what if one doesn't love himself/herself? There are people that do not like themselves very much. They may even go so far as to hate themselves. How do we reconcile this with Jesus' command to love our neighbors as ourselves?

 

[Christ_empowered]

There are some that don't. There are some that take very poor care of themselves even to the point of hurting themselves.

I think Tenchi point and I agree is that this represents distorted and warped self love not so called low self esteem as the helping professions would have us believe.

No doubt abuse exploitation victimization personal sins low status poverty etc can all contribute to warped self love. I’ve dealt with it mostly because of the helping professions. Truth? They talk about help. They’re really about bondage and outright slavery. Beware…

 

[Dorothy Mae]

There are some that don't. There are some that take very poor care of themselves even to the point of hurting themselves.

But the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. They hurt themselves because they can’t stand themselves and they care about their suffering. People who commit suicide love themselves above all others.

 

[D-D-W]

But the opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s indifference. They hurt themselves because they can’t stand themselves and they care about their suffering. People who commit suicide love themselves above all others.

Love has different opposites depending on the angle you look at it from. Indifference is more of a functional opposite where hatred is an emotional opposite.

As to suicide being self-love, again it is more complicated than that. Certainly that is the case some or a lot of the time. But there can be other reasons as well.

 

[WIP]

Love has different opposites depending on the angle you look at it from. Indifference is more of a functional opposite where hatred is an emotional opposite.

As to suicide being self-love, again it is more complicated than that. Certainly that is the case some or a lot of the time. But there can be other reasons as well.

I think we too often paint with an exceptionally broad brush.

 

[Dorothy Mae]

Love has different opposites depending on the angle you look at it from. Indifference is more of a functional opposite where hatred is an emotional opposite.

I can see that.

As to suicide being self-love, again it is more complicated than that. Certainly that is the case some or a lot of the time. But there can be other reasons as well.

Not sure if that. Judging by the lives devastated by someone doing so, seems pretty selfish.

 

[Christ_empowered]

Suicide is a social problem that manifests in individuals lives. As in…

Poverty raises the odds. At a certain level so does wealth.

Catholics once had a lower rate than Protestants. Practicing Jews once had the lowest rates in many nations largely because of very strong family and community bonds. No man is an island etc. then again…

Some eastern countries have higher rates in part because of the strength and intensity of family and social bonds. When the group is emphasized over the individual to that extent suicide apparently occurs more frequently.

The USA often focuses on the individual in suicide prevention. This proves lucrative for the so called helping professions but may sometimes make it worse. Some recent research from Europe shows that mental health treatment increases the suicide risk especially for women.

I dunno Jesus saves. He saves an individual where he is. I think His command to love others as we live ourselves is to be taken seriously and obeyed. I find this command challenging but also refreshing in part because it challenges me to reject the widespread psychological infiltration of society and the modern church.

 

[Tenchi]

A question I have about this is, what if one doesn't love himself/herself? There are people that do not like themselves very much. They may even go so far as to hate themselves. How do we reconcile this with Jesus' command to love our neighbors as ourselves?

People who are unhappy with who they are feel as they do, not because they are free of Self-love, but because the opposite is true. I've offered an explanation of this in earlier posts so I won't do so here, again.

It is a devilish twist to what Scripture commands to think that when God says, "Love your neighbor as yourself," He means love yourself FIRST and love yourself A LOT and THEN you can properly love your neighbor. That's not what God means at all. The human person is fundamentally corrupted by sin, tending toward a radical selfishness that is the ultimate source of all moral evil in the world. "There is none righteous, no, not one," the Bible says, and, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:10, 23) The human heart is "deceitful above all things and desperately wicked," God says to us in His word (Jeremiah 17:9), Jesus confirming this reality when he declared,

Matthew 15:19-20 (NASB)
19 "For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, slanders.
20 "These are the things which defile the man...

What, then, do we have of which to boast? About what ought we to feel inflated in our esteem of ourselves? Apart from God, separate from the redeeming life and Person of Christ, we are all so awful that God will cast us into hell forever if we don't repent and receive salvation in His Son! A lost person ought to feel shame about their own natural wickedness and a desperate sense of their need of the Savior, not a swollen sense of their own excellence. And so, Scripture declares:

Romans 7:18 (NASB)
18 For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh; for the willing is present in me, but the doing of the good is not.

Romans 8:6-8 (NASB)
6 For the mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace,
7 because the mind set on the flesh is hostile toward God; for it does not subject itself to the law of God, for it is not even able to do so,
8 and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Philippians 3:3 (NASB)
3 for we are the true circumcision, who worship in the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh,

1 Corinthians 1:27-31 (NASB)
27 but God has chosen the foolish things of the world to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to shame the things which are strong,
28 and the base things of the world and the despised God has chosen, the things that are not, so that He may nullify the things that are,
29 so that no man may boast before God.
30 But by His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification, and redemption,
31 so that, just as it is written, "Let him who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Christians rebel at these things, having drunk deeply from the well of worldly philosophy and psychology, retorting that every person is "fearfully and wonderfully made," the only creatures made "in the image of God" and thus to be valued above all things in Creation. But to this thinking God responds:

1 Corinthians 4:7 (NASB)
7 For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?

Titus 3:3 (NASB)
3 For we also once were foolish ourselves, disobedient, deceived, enslaved to various lusts and pleasures, spending our life in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

Ephesians 2:12 (NASB)
12 remember that you were at that time separate from Christ, excluded from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world.

Ephesians 2:1-6 (NASB)
1 And you were dead in your trespasses and sins,
2 in which you formerly walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, of the spirit that is now working in the sons of disobedience.
3 Among them we too all formerly lived in the lusts of our flesh, indulging the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest.
4 But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us,
5 even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved),
6 and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,

Apart from God, we are like a renowned artist's self-portrait that has been dipped in excrement. The artist's portrait is upon the canvas, but it is so obscured by filth that the portrait as a portrait is useless. If that portrait were cleaned and restored to its original condition, however, free of the foul crud that covers it, one could see the skill and image of the artist clearly. But until that happens, until the canvas bearing the image of the artist is made clean, it is "good for nothing but to be cast out and trodden under the foot of men."

Today, though, there are stinking, sin-fouled "canvases" bearing the "imago dei" saying to each other, "You're wonderful! You're worthy of the Artist's love! Hold yourself in high esteem, you marvelous thing, you!" But God has a very different view and commands those "canvases" bearing His image to admit their filthiness and need of cleansing, to acknowledge their wretched condition and come to Him for redemption. God does this, not because those deceitful, rebellious, sin-soiled "canvases" are worthy of His love, deserving of His sacrifice for them through Jesus Christ, but because it is His nature to love.

"Ah," the modern Christian replies, "but we are 'new creatures in Christ,' 'children of the Almighty' and precious in his sight. The children of God have great cause to esteem themselves highly!" To this, God answers that what good is in His adopted children is there in and through Christ. Of what, then, do born-again believers have to boast, to feel an enlarged sense of their own excellence? Instead, God calls them, not to expand themselves, not to a process of Self-improvement, but to death, to co-crucifixion with Christ, that his life might replace their own.

John 12:24-25 (NASB)
24 "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.
25 "He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.

Matthew 16:24-25 (NASB)
24 Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me.
25 "For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Galatians 5:24 (NASB)
24 Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

Colossians 3:2-4 (NASB)
2 Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth.
3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
4 When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Galatians 2:20 (NASB)
20 "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself up for me.

The Self-esteem movement is not biblical. The idea that one must love oneself well before loving others is contrary to Christ's example and the command of God's word. We aren't important; Christ is. When we settle into this truth and let go of ourselves, of our pride and self-interest, we begin to encounter God more fully, discovering liberty and rest in Him.

Philippians 3:7-10 (NASB)
7 But whatever things were gain to me, those things I have counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
8 More than that, I count all things to be loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them but rubbish so that I may gain Christ,
9 and may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the Law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which comes from God on the basis of faith,
10 that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death;

 

[Christ_empowered]

Yes please. I find that a Christian repudiation of psychology and psychiatry is sorely needed.

https://pamweb.org/

 

[D-D-W]

I dunno Jesus saves. He saves an individual where he is. I think His command to love others as we live ourselves is to be taken seriously and obeyed. I find this command challenging but also refreshing in part because it challenges me to reject the widespread psychological infiltration of society and the modern church.

The church I attended in college considered any kind of "self love" and "self esteem" to be sinful traits, often to the point of demonic possession. You had to be constantly groveling as nothing more than a sinful slug. They had verses such as these to make their point:

John 12:25
He who loves his life will lose it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

Luke 17:10
So you too, when you do all the things which are commanded you, say, ‘We are unworthy slaves; we have done only that which we ought to have done.’”

 

[Christ_empowered]

I don’t think self debasement is a valid response personally, Jesus knows I love myself and He tells me to live my neighbor as I live myself. I think another related issue is how self love changes as one follows Christ….

 

[D-D-W]

I don’t think self debasement is a valid response personally, Jesus knows I love myself and He tells me to live my neighbor as I live myself. I think another related issue is how self love changes as one follows Christ….

IF self debasement is how you love yourself - that makes debasing everyone else the proper way to relate to them.

 

[jasonc]

There are some that don't. There are some that take very poor care of themselves even to the point of hurting themselves.

Those with depression and PTSD with manic and depression or depression fit that .

These struggle to brush teeth etc ,bathe .

 

[jasonc]

Love has different opposites depending on the angle you look at it from. Indifference is more of a functional opposite where hatred is an emotional opposite.

As to suicide being self-love, again it is more complicated than that. Certainly that is the case some or a lot of the time. But there can be other reasons as well.

I battle this.

Ending the dreams of war Will lead one to suicide .
Imagine waking up hearing a scream of a man on fire ,a mother holding her dead child ,those who beg you save them but simply weren't able .

Death ends that .my drivers arent that but it is driven from depression related to PTSD .

In my case the voices will push me to take my life .they say I'm not worth living ,I'm useless and so on .

Survivors guilt ,not in my case,also will drive that for those who have it .

 

[Tenchi]

IF self debasement is how you love yourself - that makes debasing everyone else the proper way to relate to them.

But this thinking assumes that when Scripture says, "Love your neighbor as yourself," it is saying, "You must love yourself well in order to love others." What it is actually indicating, I think, is that we ought to show to others the same care and concern that we instinctively have for ourselves. Even those who loathe themselves eat when hungry, drink when thirsty, rest when they're tired, seek comfort and relief from pain, and so on. As Dorothy Mae has pointed out, if someone did these things for us, we'd think them very loving. It is this natural, instinctive care and concern we have for ourselves that God calls us to extend to our neighbors, too.

There is no way to know and walk with God apart from an attitude of deep humility before Him. We are vastly inferior to Him. We are as the passages I gave from Scripture indicate. Until we settle under what God says is true of us, we cannot enjoy Him and all the good things He is. It is only by going low before God that we are raised up.

Micah 6:8 (NASB)
8 He has told you, O man, what is good; And what does the LORD require of you But to do justice, to love kindness, And to walk humbly with your God?

James 4:6-10 (NASB)
6 But He gives a greater grace. Therefore it says, "GOD IS OPPOSED TO THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE."
7 Submit therefore to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.
8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded.
9 Be miserable and mourn and weep; let your laughter be turned into mourning and your joy to gloom.
10 Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you.

1 Peter 5:6 (NASB)
6 Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time,

Romans 6:22 (NASB)
22 But now having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification, and the outcome, eternal life.

 

[WIP]

Those with depression and PTSD with manic and depression or depression fit that .

These struggle to brush teeth etc ,bathe .

There are some that are just not happy. They see themselves as having little to no value at all. Is it possible to feel this way and still not be sick in some way? I think it is. We may see them as being sick but are they really or are we making a judgment based on our own bias?

 

[jasonc]

There are some that are just not happy. They see themselves as having little to no value at all. Is it possible to feel this way and still not be sick in some way? I think it is. We may see them as being sick but are they really or are we making a judgment based on our own bias?

A complicated subject .I can only say for myself . It's driven by the PTSD ,but I don't have to listen or act on those .

 

[Christ_empowered]

There are some that are just not happy. They see themselves as having little to no value at all. Is it possible to feel this way and still not be sick in some way? I think it is. We may see them as being sick but are they really or are we making a judgment based on our own bias?

Isn’t that true of all psych labels?

 

[D-D-W]

Isn’t that true of all psych labels?

No. Some have an extremely exaggerated sense of their own worth. Especially true of narcissists.

 

[D-D-W]

IMO the "love your neighbor as yourself" was taken up to a higher level when our Lord told the disciples "Love one another as I have loved you." Jn 13.34. It removes the subjective element of "as yourself."

 

[Dorothy Mae]

IMO the "love your neighbor as yourself" was taken up to a higher level when our Lord told the disciples "Love one another as I have loved you." Jn 13.34. It removes the subjective element of "as yourself."

Is there a difference?