Mar 12:31 The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these."
It wasn’t too long ago that I was counseling a young woman that had been in some difficult situations in life and was struggling to deal with the repercussions. She was making progress for a while but seemed to have stopped cold, as I asked her how her life was going she told me that she had a very helpful conversation with her brother. He had told her that what she really needed to do was just love and forgive herself and she would do a lot better in life. The verse he used to back this up was Mark 12:31 quoted above with the emphasis being on the “as yourself” part of the verse.
Not Helpful!
The problem is that is a wrong interpretation of this verse. Jesus isn’t commanding us to love ourselves, He assumes we already love ourselves and we need to have that same love for other people. Everything we do, we do for our own satisfaction. We are born selfish and absent the grace of God we will die the same way but Jesus offers us a better way.
A More Excellent Way
Jesus tells us to take this same love that is so naturally pointed inward and focus it outward instead. He tells us to be as consumed with the joy and satisfaction of others as we are with ourselves. Not to deny our joy but to find our joy in service to others that we may glorify our God. Jesus would never tell us to focus on ourselves or love ourselves because He doesn’t need to. What we need is help getting our eyes off of ourselves and where they belong, on God first and people second. It’s been said that they way you find joy is right in the spelling of the word, you put Jesus first, Yourself last, and Others inbetween. May God free us all from the bondage of loving ourselves and make us lovers of Him and lovers of others.
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