#AffirmationMonday: Love Yourself (Part 3)
We love because he first loved us. (1 John 4:19)
I’ve always been a proponent of volunteering. But I had a gentleman ask me one time why I spent so much time helping other people. I told him how we have a responsibility to help others succeed in life. How these will be people that take care of us when we get older, who make decisions on our behalf and who live in a world with our children. We have a duty to love and care for others, but we can’t effectively do that if we don’t first loves ourselves. And we can’t love ourselves the way we really need to if we don’t understand Jesus, the one who has loved us first. If you haven’t read the first two blog posts in this series, go back and read Part 1 and Part 2 here. But just to lay some foundation to this post, I want to emphasize this truth-that Christ loved us so much, even in our sin and imperfections, that He was willing to die for us. He saw the potential in us and gave His life for it. Because of His love, we are free to honor ourselves with the love we need, understanding that we deserve nothing less because He gave us nothing less.
With that being said, I’ve found that loving yourself is much like an overflowing cup. You can only contain so much before that love starts to overflow into the environment around you. Self love was never meant to stay within ourselves. It was meant to spill out onto others. For me, that means volunteering. What does your overflowing cup mean to you? Does it mean making meals for the homeless and driving them around? Does it mean adopting a child, or starting a shelter for rescued animals? Maybe your overflowing cup means fighting injustices in our judicial system, or becoming a doctor in a third world country. God sacrificed it all for us because He loves us, even in the midst of our imperfections. When we truly wrap our hearts around the fact that God knows all about us and still loves us, we free ourselves to love who we are. And when we love who we are, we can love the people God created in whatever capacity He’s called us to do that in.
We weren’t designed to be unconnected from the world. The love God has for us through His son and the love we have for ourselves because of it should naturally pour out for others to benefit from. Then, maybe in seeing your love, they’ll love others, also.
Affirmation for the Day
I know what it means to love myself so I should show others how to through my overflowing cup of love towards others.