Love Myself and Others
Our SW from last week was to review the one seed that each of us wanted to plant and focus on (Hope, Love, Truth, or Healing) and to look at the personal Scripture that went along with planting that seed. We were to then look up our Scripture in the Bible so we could take in some of the others verses that came before and after our one verse. Healing was the seed that I planted, and the Scripture that has helped me to grow this seed of healing into my life is Jeremiah 29:11. Jeremiah tells me that God knows the plans He has for me, and they are plans that give me a hope and future. When I went to my Bible to see some of the verses that surrounded Jeremiah 29:11, I was reminded that through Jeremiah, the prophet, God had spoken these words to the Israelites when they were in Babylonian exile for 70 years! I can only imagine the encouragement that these words gave the Israelites who had been taken out of their homeland of Jerusalem. I have not been exiled, but I have been moved, and in that move I have already seen the future and hope that God has provided me with. I am surrounded by the love of my family, and I am feeling less cluttered by the demands of home ownership. I am living with greater simplicity because I have less.
What story came to life for you as you reviewed your SW with respect to CHG# 3?
CHG # 4 tells me to love myself and others.
What does CHG # 4 imply as being the root cause of my clutter?
♥ My clutter builds up when I do not love myself.
♥ My clutter builds up when I do not love others.
Therefore, when I learn to love myself and others I lessen my clutter and this brings healing to me.
The Scripture to support CHG # 4 is from Matthew: 22:39, “Love your neighbor as yourself.”
What does Matthew 22:39 imply as being the root cause of my clutter? It reinforces that my clutter builds up when I do not love myself and do not love my neighbor, in otherwords, do not love others. Therefore, when I love myself and others according to God’s Word, I lessen my clutter and this brings healing to me.
CHG # 4 is very dependent upon CHG # 2, which tells us to love the Lord. We learn to love ourselves and eachother by learning how God loves us and calls us to love Him.
It is through God’s Word that we learn to love the way God created us and intended us to love. In my desire to love God’s way, I am constantly asking Him to heal the clutter of how I have loved with wrong thinking and wrong actions and to love through His eyes rather than mine. I actually feel God’s intimate love and presence when I hear what He has to say and how He sees me in Daniel 12:3. God sees me as wise and a bright light in the sky and then He tells me that because I turn others to righteousness I will shine like a star forever. My bright light will help others to see the light of God!
We live in a world that focuses on entertainment and wants to cut throat. It is a world that craves for individual stardom and does not understand why we are here on this earth. We are here on this earth to love! We are born out of God’s love for us and our clutter will be lessened when learn to love ourselves and others through God’s eyes and not man’s eyes. In God’s kingdom we all can become stars. We are His stars forever.
This week’s SW is about you learning to see yourself the way God sees you, not with condemnation but with love. Cut out a red heart for yourself and then apply CHG # 3 by asking God to speak His message of love to you. Write down that message on your heart and be touched by the Spirit of God’s love.
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