Valuing and Respecting Your Neighbor As Yourself
BY BCL | If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must first know what it means to love ourselves. Yet, we cannot love ourselves rightly until we know God’s love for us in Christ.
Loving our neighbor includes recognizing and honoring the dignity of others, as we should for ourselves, since we are all God’s image-bearers. Yet, we can easily find ourselves in a state of self-loathing or feeling like we don’t matter. Why is it important for us to value and respect ourselves?
What does it mean to “love your neighbor as yourself”?
When a scribe asked Jesus which commandment was the most important of all, Jesus answered,
“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31)
If we are to love our neighbor as ourselves, we must first know what it means to love ourselves. There is much talk in the world today about self-love, but the reality is that we cannot love ourselves rightly until we know God’s love for us in Christ. Because we are acutely aware of our faults and shortcomings, we can develop an extremely low opinion of ourselves. Furthermore, shifting cultural values can create additional turmoil within us when it comes to our perception of self-worth…