Love Your Neighbor as Yourself

Matthew 22:36-40 (Amplified Bible):

³⁶ Teacher, which kind of commandment is great and important (the principal kind) in the Law? [Some commandments are light—which are heavy?]

³⁷ And He replied to him, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind (intellect).

³⁸ This is the great (most important, principal) and first commandment.

³⁹ And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself.

⁴⁰ These two commandments sum up and upon them depend all the Law and the Prophets.

Love God first, then love those around you.  That is how I understood the above Bible verses for most of my life.  However, verse 39 reads to love your neighbor as yourself.  That is, I have a level of love for myself and I should not love my neighbor at a lower level.

That was news to me.  I thought Christianity taught that I was to value myself below that of my neighbor.   However, God doesn't love or value me below anyone else.  He loves us all the same.

I may choose to set another ahead of me, but that is my choice; it doesn’t devalue me.  Service to others is a high calling.  Jesus was a beautiful example of a servant-king, and He would do only what He saw His father do. He set high value on his purpose and did not do things just because some religious idea said that he should.

My life and relationships have become much healthier since I began loving my neighbor as I love myself.   

I love this life.

Copyright 2012  Leah Lambert Smith

 6-24-12   Just saw this tweet from a preacher, "J.O.Y.= JESUS first... OTHERS second, YOURSELF last. "  I see what this is trying to say, but God does not put me last.  I agree with Him.