Jesus told us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves in Mark 12:31. Some people have said that they cannot love their neighbor as they ought because they do not love themselves. On the contrary, the Bible is clear that we love ourselves too much! In this article, I hope to reveal how we love ourselves, and armed with these thoughts, how we can love our neighbor as ourselves.
If we replace the word love with other words, the commandment becomes easier to comprehend. Replace “love yourself” with “pamper yourself,” “show mercy to yourself,” “take care of yourself,” “do good to yourself,” and then the ideas on how to love others begin to form. Let’s look at some examples of how we love ourselves.
1. When we do wrong, don’t we usually internally acknowledge it and just move on to something else? (Yes, some of us worry about it a lot.) We can show the same consideration to others. We don’t roll our eyes up at ourselves, laugh harshly at or mock ourselves; nor do we keep bringing up our failures to others. Too often I hear people bringing up past injustices of others, poking fun at them or ridiculing them. We don’t do this to ourselves, but treat ourselves with mercy and move on. When we know God forgives our sins, we can do no less for others.
2. We like to work at our own speed to get tasks done our way. Accepting this in ourselves, we can be courteous to those who are not working at our pace. We don’t like being pushed and hurried and neither do they. We want people to be patient with us; we can extend that courtesy to others.
3. We usually accept the looks we have and the clothing we wear, and accept any imperfections there; we don’t mock ourselves over our appearance. So we know it’s not appropriate to put down the appearance of others.
4. If we are thirsty, we get up to get a drink. If we have guests at our home, it’s appropriate to provide a drink to those who are thirsty.
5. We may be able to endure harsh conditions better than others, like cold and heat, or less food, or louder noise, but if we know that others will suffer more in those conditions, we should help alleviate them if possible or not lead them into those conditions if it is within our power. We want others to accommodate our needs and weaknesses, and we should consider theirs.
6. When something goes wrong and it isn’t out fault, we don’t want people to immediately put the blame on us. Even so, we should investigate things carefully rather than accuse someone right away. As we want a fair chance to explain ourselves, they should be given the same opportunity. We don’t like suspicious looks cast our way, so why should we do the same to others?
7. There are times we do not wish to be disturbed. Other people have the same need, and we should leave them alone too.
8. When we wish to move into the next lane on the road, we’d like the cars to make room for us. Shouldn’t we do the same for other drivers?
These are all ways in which we love ourselves. Obviously, this list is not exhaustive; we should be able to come up with our own ideas of how we favor ourselves. In all these things, we learn what Jesus meant when He said to do to others as we want others to do to us in Matthew 7:12. It is no different than loving our neighbor as ourselves. When we know our needs, we can understand the needs of others, too, and love them. Jesus said this commandment to love one another is second to the greatest commandment, which is to love God with all the heart, soul, mind, and strength. If these two commandments are Jesus’ top priorities, then shouldn’t they be ours as well?
