Love Others as Yourself

*** I realize I might get a lot of people upset with this one but it truly is what God's Word says. I don't like to be hated. That is not why I write these truths. The truth is I want to be liked, but I love the Lord too much to neglect telling the truth especially when it is poisoning the Church Body. So, here it goes...

Today’s scripture:

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.” (1 John 4:18 NKJV)

He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30 NKJV)

Take a close look at today’s first scripture. Perfect love casts out fear. To have perfect love is to have Jesus Christ. This is what makes Him the answer to any issue in our lives. Why do we do the things that we hate? It’s because of fear; fear of not being someone who makes a difference, fear of not being accepted or loved, fear of being a nobody, fear of being alone, fear of many things. We need to kill that fear with perfect love, because dear ones, “Love never fails” (see 1 Corinthians 13).

In my childhood years, I had many people tell me (most of them in the psychology field) that I need to love myself. I had a long period of time that was filled with depression to a very severe state that had me hospitalized 3 different times in my early years. I also had many people tell me that I need to forgive myself for the things that I have done.

I’ve heard about people with strongholds on their lives like eating addictions of gorging themselves with food or anorexic tendencies of purging the large amounts of food they just ate. Or, people with the desire to hurt themselves by cutting up their arms, or with the severe hopelessness that they can not be healed, so they drink large amount of liquor mixed with a bottle of sleeping pills hoping not to wake up. The sad thing is there are many people that live in bondage with many ways of dealing with life’s issues.

But I have to tell you the issue isn’t because they lack self-love. In fact, they do these things because they love themselves too much! Now, please dear one, let me explain before you write this off as my ignorance or a lack of grace or compassion. Remember, I too have been in that place of total despair of thinking too low of myself or hating myself. I didn’t hate myself like I thought I did. The truth is I thought way too much of myself and what others thought of me that I became the center of my own world.

The thing with gorging on food, cutting yourself, purging your food so you can look thin or any other addiction isn’t because you don’t love yourself. It is because you have got the focus on you in a very destructive way. The answer is not to think of yourself in a positive way. It isn’t because you need to say things like “I am successful”, “I am powerful”, “I am loved” or “I am beautiful”. This kind of self-affirmation sounds good and maybe even sounds biblical. But, the truth is the bible says nothing about loving ourselves. The answer, my dear friends, is found in the cross! It is found in the total sacrifice in what Jesus Christ has done for you!

You might say what about Matthew 22:39 “…‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ This verse is not saying to love yourself. It’s a command to love others LIKE you love yourself. Its assuming you already love yourself as it says in Ephesians 5:28-29 “So husbands ought to love their own wives as their own bodies... For no one ever hated his own flesh…”.

According to that passage in Matthew 22, Jesus says the whole bible is wrapped up in two commands: 1^st Love God, 2^nd Love others. That is all! Nothing about yourself! Now, hold on, it’s not wrong to recognize who you are in Christ Jesus. It’s not wrong to know you are loved. You need this wisdom, but all wisdom comes from fear of the Lord (Proverbs 9:10). This “fear of the Lord” is a reverence and high respect. Without that reverence we are incapable of loving Him. We love Him because He first loved us (see 1 John 4:19).

Many people I talk to say “Yes, I agree. We should recognize that we are loved and know that God is going to work mighty things through me.” But the thing is they tend to stay there. This type of theology, I feel, can be very dangerous. It can slowly persuade us to focus on ourselves. Yes, it is true, God has a plan for your life just as every other person and He does work miracles through us and gives us huge responsibilities. But the focus needs to stay on Him!

Reflection:

The truth is, according to John 1:29, Jesus is the answer to all life’s problems! God’s Word says that He and He only takes away the sins of the world. We do the things we do because of our sin nature. Jesus even says in Mark 10:18 “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but God.

Challenge:

Do you struggle with any of these issues on how you are trying to deal with your problems? First, get on your knees before a holy God and acknowledge Him for what He has done for you on the cross and thank Him for it. Then, seek out someone that needs love. Someone who is poor, or abused, or even someone that irritates you. Look close into their life and see if there is something you can bless them with. Mercy has the power to kill that obsession of serving yourself with any issue.

-Doug McGowan

Do not be like the apostate church

Take a look at this convicting message...

Click on:  WAKE UP CHURCH!!!

God is faithful

Back in August of last year I wrote a blog titled "Sorrow will turn to joy...

(http://theheartofchrist.blogspot.com/2012/08/sorrow-will-turn-to-joy.html). 

In that blog I mentioned some issues my family and I were facing. I also wrote in that blog what I heard the Lord say that gave me great peace. The Lord said..

It's going to be hard, but I am with you. When you hear the lies that you’re not going to make it, remember that this is a time I have prepared for you and your family to press into Me and have faith in Me. I'm going to give you more of Myself and I am going to strengthen and purify all of you to help you through this process of pain. Just don't turn from Me. Instead, turn toward Me. You may feel at times as if I'm not listening or that I have left you, but it will only FEEL that way. In reality, when My only Son hung on that cross for you, He went through an enormous amount of physical pain and then suffered My wrath, but look what We (the Trinity) gained as a result. It was right for Me to crush Him like that because My desire was and is to receive glory and provide My resurrected Son with a people for the New Earth, including you! I am helping you and I will provide for you.

The situation that we had was this...

After getting married to my lovely wife Cyndi we became a family of 8. Cyndi had a job cooking at a ministry in Harvey, IL. Being that she was the ministry's cook, they let her take home as much food as she needed. So, needless to say we were not in great need of food and we ate well every night. Even though we both had jobs, they still were jobs through ministry so, even though we were doing ok, we didn't have a lot of cushion in the bank. Also, after getting married we were convicted about our tithing. The conviction was we weren't tithing at all. So, a few months after we started tithing, Cyndi was told that her job was ending because of budget cuts.

Well, its been a year since that blog and so much has taken place. Our whole family has had chapters of challenges in their lives, some very huge challenges but I can see now how God has been so good to us and very faithful.

One of our own was facing prison time of 5 years, but rather than go to prison God laid it on the judges heart to send him to Teen Challenge (a spiritual discipleship for drug and alcohol rehab that is firmly grounded in biblical truth). He is doing great and is starting to know what it means to truly follow and love God and he is making a commitment in doing so and has a desire to go into ministry when God says its time.

Another one of ours is finishing up well after going through some biblical counseling of some pretty serious issues and she volunteers heavily at our church and is on her way to go on her first mission trip in a couple weeks! She also is learning the importance of prayer and staying in the Word of God.

And still another has made huge strides in changing his ways from a desire for drugs, and the need to be in a special school for troubled kids, and is now staying clean and is on the honor roll at the public school and getting great positive reports from teachers and the principle!

Another one of ours has had some financial hardship already in his young life and in the past has had a strong desire for drugs and alcohol but now is choosing to follow God and be responsible for his financial responsibilities. I now see my boy as a man who is learning what it means to "man up" and lead by coming along side his younger brothers and sister and be a biblical example of love. He also has a desire to write and has started writing a faith-based book!

For myself and my wife Cyndi, we have had much challenges as well. We too are going through some counseling to get things right with Jesus. I have taking time away from teaching and ministry to focus on being a father and a husband for a time.

The other day I was re-reading that blog from a year ago, and God let me see over the past year how He has been faithful. I'll share two of the many provisions that come to mind...

A few months ago, my wife asked me to pick out a gift she wanted to bless me with from the tax return we received. After we had all of our needs met, we had about $350 left over. I said what about a kayak? I've always wanted one and now that I'm trying to win my kids relationships, I saw this as a way if I got a two person kayak to take them on. I started looking into the prices and quickly got very discouraged. They were way out of my price range by hundreds of dollars. Then Cyndi says "ask God for your kayak"! Really?? Would He want to do that? So, I asked God very specifically for a two person NON-Inflatable kayak that I can afford. Right away, the thought came to me to call up an old friend of mine from years ago who has become an atheist. I remembered he used to kayak all the time. 

He was blown away! He says, "There is a God after all! Doug, I just decided to sell my two person kayak! Doug, I am not kidding it was just yesterday I decided to sell it. I'll sell it to you for $750!" Man! More discouragement! I told him I can't afford it. I only have $300. He said you ain't going to find anything for that amount. Then he says "I'll think about it". The next day he said I'll deliver it to your house for $350!!! Wow! When he pulled up he said your getting one heck of a great deal! This kayak has two sets of peddles for your feet and paddles and a rudder! The rudder alone is a few hundred dollars. Brand new this kayak is worth $3,000!!! Praise you Jesus!!!

Another thing happened just last Mother's Day. Cyndi loves the zoo so, I wanted to surprise her with a trip to Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago, which is a free zoo but you have to pay about $30 for parking. And we didn't have hardly any money at all. Since I let her handle the bills and take care of our finances, I didn't really have much of a clue how we were going to do this, but I felt God wanted me to do it anyway and for me just to trust Him. So, Cyndi and I along with the kids went to Chicago and had fun at the zoo. On our way out of the park, we stopped to pay for the parking. The debt card we used did not work, so we gave the guy another debt card and that one didn't work either, so we gave him our last debt card and all three failed! I said to the guy we don't have cash so he said Happy Mother's Day and let us go for free! But here is the amazing part - I tried the debit card after we left and it worked fine! I believe God kept those cards from working to save us the money!

The lesson I have learned and am still learning is just to have more trust in my Jesus! I wanted to tell you all of this in hopes this brings you some hope and peace if your going through some hardship. Even if its not financial hardship, God is your great provider!