WHAT IT MEANS TO LOVE YOURSELF
Although1 Corinthians 13:3-8  provides a good summary of what it means to love your neighbor, it does not begin to explain what it means to love ourselves. Just as God’s idea of loving your neighbor is not the same as the human idea of love, God’s idea of loving yourself is also very different from human self-love. See this link for a summary of human self love as it is commonly described.

The main fact to know about Godly self-love (i.e. loving yourself) is that obedience to the command to love your neighbor produces spiritual by-products that God calls blessings. Blessings for obedience to God’s laws are symbolically represented in Deuteronomy 28:1-14. Blessings are also identified in the bible as spiritual gifts: 

• • Faith
  • Grace
  • Mercy
  • Peace
  • Love
  • Glory
  • Hope
  • Joy
  • Truth

These spiritual gifts are also defined as Godly love. When God gives these gifts to us, he effectively implants  his character in us. See this link for understanding of God’s character. As we adopt God’s character in our hearts, we are compelled to share that character with others just like he shares his character with us. God calls this sharing process loving your neighbor. In other words, when we love others we share God’s character with them. 

Since God is spirit, sharing his character is a spiritual process. We do it through human thoughts, words and deeds that can be observed but the invisible, influential power of the human interactions comes from God. What that invisible power does is change the hearts of people who receive Godly love. The bible calls heart change being “born again.” Changing hearts is the one and only miracle that God does. It may not happen all at one time, because heart change is a process that cannot be predicted. God can change hearts independently, but he also works through New Covenant disciples who serve him as angels/messengers to share his love with others. That is why he gave the command to love your neighbor.

When people share God’s love, there is no cost to the receiver. This is very different from religion which always requires something from followers. The only cost is to the givers who sacrifice their lives for the receivers. The gift of love, therefore, is a free gift. This is appropriate because the gift is God’s character which cannot be measured or valued in human terms.

The quality of the spiritual gift (i.e. blessings, Godly love) that distinguishes it from human self-love is that it is only experienced in the heart – not in the physical body, our mind, or the material world. Human blessings we give to one another or ourselves as acts of human love can be observed with our natural eyes, but Godly blessings cannot be observed because they exist in the heart. They are spiritual.

Whenever someone obeys God’s commands to love their neighbor, God deposits a spiritual blessing/gift/reward in the heart off the one who obeys. This is what the bible means when it says “love your neighbor as yourself.” 

The heart-felt benefits of loving yourself while loving your neighbor demonstrate the spiritual principle of giving and receiving found in these verses.

• Luke 6:38 “Give, and it will be given to you. They will pour into your lap a good measure–pressed down, shaken together, and running over. For by your standard of measure it will be measured to you in return.”
• Proverbs 19:17  One who is gracious to a poor person lends to the LORD, And He will repay him for his good deed.
• Matthew 10:42 “And whoever gives one of these little ones just a cup of cold water to drink in the name of a disciple, truly I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward.”
• Matthew 25:40 “And the King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of Mine, you did it for Me.’
• 2Corinthians 9:6 Now I say this: the one who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and the one who sows generously will also reap generously.
• Hebrews 6:10  For God is not unjust so as to forget your work and the love which you have shown toward His name, by having served and by still serving the saints.
• Proverbs 28:27 One who gives to the poor will never lack anything, But one who shuts his eyes will have many curses.
• Matthew 7:2 “For in the way you judge, you will be judged; and by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you.
• Mark 4:24  And He was saying to them, “Take care what you listen to. By your standard of measure it will be measured to you; and more will be given you besides.

The promises in these verses can be summarized like this:

When you give Godly love to your neighbors you receive Godly love in your heart from God.

Perhaps your neighbor will reciprocate, but the life of Jesus predicts that we will more likely receive rejection instead of gratitude or reciprocal love. This truth is not often preached by Christians because sentimental human love is more attractive than rejection. 

The positive aspects of love (e.g. patience, kindness, hope, trust, perseverance, etc.) increase in your heart as you willfully practice patience, kindness, hope, trust and perseverance in your daily life. What you voluntarily give away is what you receive from God. This is what Luke 6:38 means: “Give, and it will be given to you.” 

If you are faithful, the practical aspects of love become natural features of your heart, mind and speech to the degree that you don’t consciously think about practicing them. You love naturally and spontaneously out of your heart without engaging your mind. Loving your neighbor is not a religious activity.

Eventually you will find that the attitudes and behaviors that are not representative of Godly love (e.g. anger, hate, unforgiveness, envy, boasting, etc.) are increasingly absent from your heart, mind and speech. But whenever you might randomly display those old habits of impatience, envy, pride, boasting, self-serving, angry, unforgiveness and abuse, you will recognize those behaviors as remnants of your old, unloving self. Awareness of these offenses against people you know and those you don’t know, will generate regret, humility and repentance which are triggers for release of more of God’s blessings and heart change. 

Because Godly love is typically cast broadly and often anonymously (i.e. not  exclusively to individuals you know and with whom you have face-to-face interaction) it is impossible to relate any unique acts of Godly love shared to particular blessings received. This is God’s way of guarding us from performing religious acts for rewards. When acts of love flow from the heart to all people (i.e. your global neighbors) as normal features of our everyday lives, we do not expect rewards. But, whenever we stop to listen to our hearts, we will know that our heart is full of blessings that are hard to explain with human words. Those blessings will become increasingly recognizable the more we make the world better by sharing Godly love.

In the short-run, obedience to God’s command to love our neighbors will necessarily be willful and intentional because our hearts are naturally inclined to unloving thoughts and behaviors (e.g. envy, pride, boasting, anger, self-serving, unforgiveness, etc.) But, as we persevere in our efforts to incorporate the principles of loving our neighbors into our daily lives, we will notice that God rewards us in ways that equip us to love our neighbor more deeply, more faithfully, without effort.

This is how you learn to love yourself while you love our neighbors. Here are a few examples of how it plays out in practical ways in your life:

• When you sow patience with others, and regret all the occasions when you were impatient, you become more aware of God’s patience with  you.
• When you sow kindness with others, and regret all the occasions when you were unkind, you become more aware of God’s kindness to you.
• When you cease striving for your own way, and regret all your previous efforts to have your own way, your heart becomes more grateful for what you do have and you will strive less.
• When you restrain your anger toward others, and regret all the occasions when you were angry, your heart becomes more peaceful.
• When you forgive others for their offenses to you and regret all the occasions when you were unforgiving, you have peace in your heart.
• When you share God’s principles of Godly love, your trust in God’s desire for unity and justice grows whether people respond affirmatively, negatively, or not at all.
• When you see people who do not practice Godly love voted out of office, your trust in God’s power to change hearts increases as more people love their neighbors.
• When you see legislators correct injustice, your heart rejoices with gladness.

That is the plan, but it cannot be understood or executed without understanding the nature of Godly love which expresses God’s character through mortal humans.