Before I begin this post, I want to clarify some things. It’s written primarily for Christians, but I invite anyone outside the group to “peek in” to see what I’m talking about. There are things you should definitely consider. And, if you don’t see the answers you are looking for in this post, notice that this one is Part 1. There should be more about this subject coming up next week.
What Does the Law Say?
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
And behold, a certain lawyer stood up and tested Him, saying, "Teacher, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?"
He said to him, "What is written in the law? What is your reading of it?"
So he answered and said, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,' and 'your neighbor as yourself.' "
~Luke 10:25-27
When it comes to Law, there are always lawyers, and there are always legal questions and definitions. We just had three meetings with our attorney, going over creating an LLC for our business, a family trust for our stuff, and our personal wills. Signing everything in triplicate, I slowed down to at least skim through the legalese, to make sure everything looked okay, and I caught the fact that the last page said, “Page 13 of 14.” We laughed at that, but it actually seemed to be a big deal. The legal assistant was sent to pull out the typewriter to overcome the glitch, and type out a page that said, “The End,” designating it “Page 14 of 14.”
The rest? Most of it looked standard, so we didn’t argue with it – we just signed on all those lines.
In the verses from Luke above, a lawyer tests Jesus with a question about how to inherit eternal life, and Jesus basically says, “What do you think?” The lawyer must have been listening to Jesus’ other teachings because elsewhere, He had pointed to a couple of non-Ten-Commandment verses to show that 1.) loving God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind, and 2.) loving your neighbor as yourself are the two greatest commandments. They summarize all the rest of the Law. So in fact, this lawyer got the question right!
Most of us, and indeed, Jesus’ listeners as well, understand the first one easily enough, but the second one gets sticky and misunderstood too frequently when we try to analyze it. In Jesus’ day, this lawyer wanted to know, “Yes, but who is my neighbor?” He wanted to make lists of exactly whom he was expected to love, and hang the rest of the world. Jesus then had to close the loopholes with him by telling him the story of the Good Samaritan, where He is showing it is not so much who is our neighbor, but are we being neighborly to the people with whom we come in contact? Does that sound like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood to you?
Now, in 21st Century America, we Christians have another question about this same commandment, and it would sure be nice if Jesus could be here to answer this point of law for us, because it just seems to be giving us fits. The question of the day is, “How can I love my neighbor as myself if I don’t love myself?”
So let’s talk about this. Many people believe they don’t love themselves, or even that they hate themselves, and that this is evidenced by feelings of depression, a desire to self-harm, self deprecation, drug or alcohol addiction, or even suicide. Now that you’ve seen some of my posts, you know that, like about all of mankind, I’ve been through some periods of feeling lonely, rejected, and ashamed. You may be thinking that I might not love myself if I express guilt and shame over my past.
And so, you might think that in order for me to be a good Christian and live up to Jesus’ definition of loving my neighbor as myself, I need to be set free of all these negative feelings about myself and start loving me more. Some people work very hard at that. Here’s one of those self-help videos (eight hours worth!) that will teach me how to love myself while I’m sleeping. I don’t really recommend that. Just listen to it for a few minutes. You may notice that it’s actually unapologetically blasphemous. It replaces the love for God with love and worship of Self. Oh wait! We are to Love the Lord with all our heart, soul, strength, and mind. Uh-oh! That does not leave room for Love of Self.
You see, in reality, this notion of a need for more self-love is in the realm of humanist philosophy. In eighth grade, there was a very popular girl in my school named Joann. She had a very cool British accent and read very thick books with lots of words, in small print. If you wanted to be cool like Joann, and be “accepted” by her, you would find a copy of one of those books and read it. You would start with The Fountainhead and move on to Atlas Shrugged. Both were books by a popular humanist and founder of Objectivism, Ayn Rand. You would even learn how to pronounce her name!
Of course, in striving to be accepted, I found a copy of The Fountainhead and got all the way through it. The ideas have not left me, though the storyline has. There were various characters in the book, and sometimes you thought, “Oh this is one of the heroes.” Eventually you found out that there were only two classes of people in Ayn Rand’s world: The Selfless and The Selfish. In her books, you were to learn that only the Selfish are powerful. The Selfless are weak and can never accomplish anything, whether for good or for ill. But the Selfish, not the good, were the heroes. This, my friends, is not Christianity. In fact, it is the opposite.
But God has said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” What does that mean, exactly? And what do I think of myself? What does anyone think of themselves? Is our problem in society really about low self-esteem? Is that why we commit suicide? Is it why we take psych drugs to overcome anxiety and depression?
Pursuit of Happiness
Maybe we Americans think the Constitution contains a “Happiness” clause. Actually, the “Pursuit of Happiness” is in the Declaration of Independence, next to the Right to Life and the one about Liberty. That is, we have a right in America, to pursue happiness, not to be happy.
When you think about it, it really boils down to this: we all do want to be happy, but that is often elusive. Sometimes we think that kind of gratification will come from owning enough stuff, or sometimes it is a relationship or a position of power, but if we are disappointed in this, and we are unhappy, that’s when we might head for the drugs, the alcohol, or the counselor.
Herein lies the answer. For the most part, we do not really hate ourselves. Somewhere along the line, we may think we got a bum deal in life. It might be that we were cheated, or physically less than perfect, or that we grew up living in a 10-ft.-wide trailer and Dad was never home. But this all proves that we do love ourselves, and someone else doesn’t love us enough. Was it Dad? Was it the coach? Was it the other kids who teased? Was it the person who assaulted us? Or, was it ... God?
You see, this is what Paul says, in another place, and you have to listen to Paul because he was an expert in the Law, being a very astute Pharisee:
“So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies; he who loves his wife loves himself.
“For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church.” ~Ephesians 5:28-29
So basically, Paul is saying nobody has ever hated themselves. Both Paul and Jesus assume the foundational truth that everybody already loves themselves. That’s why we usually eat and try not to die.
Why do people then sometimes commit suicide? Many times, it’s because, like Judas Iscariot, who betrayed Jesus, they are under a heavy load of guilt and shame. Because of this or some other physical pain or psychological pain, they have grown to believe that the pursuit of happiness lies in non-existence, and their desire to be rid of the pain supersedes the desire to live. This erasing of the pain, they reason, will finally make them happy.
Unfortunately, this reasoning is not of God. It is a deception from the enemy of Mankind, especially since there really is no such thing as a state of non-existence. “Nirvana” is a concept from a false religion, that says when we’ve collected enough good Karma, we’ll dissolve into a state of nothingness that finally ends the cycle of continuing to return in various forms to atone for our shortcomings in a previous life. But God teaches that there is either eternal life in Heaven with God … or eternal separation from God, which includes eternal torment. We cannot shut off Life like a spigot. It will continue, one way or the other.
I can’t address all the reasons people believe they hate themselves, but let me at least address the guilt and shame part of it. I’ve heard it said that only people can blush – no other member of the Animal Kingdom can be ashamed of themselves. We humans are blessed with a very complex part of our makeup called a Conscience. This makes the creation of life in a test tube wholly ineffective and impractical. Biologists who try to create an imitation of Life by gluing cells and flesh together as well as possible can’t really find a human spirit, a conscience, or a personality to put into their creation, neither can they generate one of these on a 3-D printer. It is not possible.
Now, I have blushed over my past more than once. There is shame connected to it. As I mentioned last week, there is an element of “it wasn’t my fault” and another element of “I knew better and I need to repent.” With the humanist philosophy, I might “feel” better to totally dismiss my guilt and shame and blame others.
But in my heart, I know that’s not true. I have a Conscience. For my part in what occurred during my high school years, the only way to actually get rid of guilt and shame is to take it to Jesus, who nailed it to a cross and died for it. Jesus said:
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
“For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved.” ~John 3:16-17
I am stunned to think:
“That God shouldst love a sinner such as I,
How wonderful is love like this!”
Do you still believe that you really hate yourself? If you could believe those verses above, that even though you hate yourself, the God who created you loves you enough to die for you, wouldn’t that change everything?
“Lord Jesus, I know that what Man does to Man can influence his behavior. And I know that we have some reasons for acting wrongly. But there is also just plain sin that permeates our lives, and we cannot live up to Good Samaritan standards. We cannot inherit eternal life on our own, no matter what we do. It’s only by Your mercy and Your sacrifice that we can be clean and pure in Your sight, and inherit that eternal life we so need.
“Thank you for the cleansing you’ve done in my heart!
“And Lord, if there is anyone reading this blog post now that has not yet believed in Your mercy and accepted your gift of redemption from sin, I pray that they will now. That is the one and only way to get rid of that guilt and shame that comes with the territory of being human. Come into their lives and make them clean and whole, just the way You did for me. In Your Name, Amen.”
Note: If you have prayed to receive Christ’s sacrifice and asked Him to come into your life for the first time, would you leave a comment below? And, when you receive Him as your Savior, do you realize there is great rejoicing in Heaven?
“Likewise, I say to you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” ~Luke 15:10
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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