Choose Love (32 page)

Let me tell you a few things about you.

First of all, you were created in God’s image
. So were your mom and dad, and that’s why you resemble them too. When you receive Jesus,
you are a new creation
. You have a new self, and from then on you must stop trying to prop up your old self.

You are the dwelling place of God’s Holy Spirit and you belong to God
. You were bought at a steep price, so you should glorify God in your body and spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, and that’s why it should be valued and loved. Don’t do anything to grieve Him—including criticizing your body, His dwelling place.

One of the greatest gifts God gives us is His Spirit living in us. We must cherish that gift and also love the temple He has given us. You have the Spirit of the one, true, living, holy God of the universe dwelling in you, so refuse to criticize yourself.

Paul said that a person should not “think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith” (Romans 12:3). That means we don’t judge ourselves on the basis of what
we
accomplish or have made
ourselves
to be, but value ourselves with regard to who
God
made us to be, what
He
is doing in us, and how
He
is enabling us to fulfill our purpose.

Stop Saying Bad Things About Yourself

We want the words we speak to always be pleasing to God, and that includes the words we say about ourselves. David prayed, “
Let the words of my mouth
and the
meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight,
O L
ORD
, my strength and my Redeemer” (Psalm 19:14). He was talking about
all
of his words. That includes the words we say and the thoughts we have in our heart about ourselves.

If you are always beating up on yourself in the words you speak, how does that please and glorify God? How is He blessed when you criticize His creation, of which you are an important part? Paul said, “If anyone defiles the temple of God, God will destroy him. For the temple of God is holy, which temple you are” (1 Corinthians 3:17). Strong words from the One who loves you.

I used to be guilty of saying bad things about myself. Because of the terrible words my mother often spoke to me, I grew up thinking the worst about who I was. I was often told I was worthless and would never amount to anything. I was never told I had any positive attributes or that I was good at anything. I was never encouraged that I could be or do anything at all. In fact, I was discouraged and made to feel hopeless about my life.

I was not in a family of encouragers. They only ridiculed. Only one of my aunts made me feel as though I mattered in this world.
Everyone else made me feel like an imposition. So I ended up hating everything about myself and my life. I carried that self-hatred for years. It only started to heal once I received the Lord and He began to love me into wholeness. Once I was free of the self-hatred, I still felt as if I would always have to suffer for everything in life. It was never easy. It was always a struggle. And I compared my life with the lives of other people.

It took a time of healing and learning about God’s love for me, and that helped me to see the truth. I saw that we all make choices every day, and when we choose to live in God’s love, and choose to show our love for Him, it affects every other choice—especially
the choice to love who God made us to be
.

No one has everything. It may seem as if some people do, but they don’t. So we can’t set our eyes on those we think have so much more than we do and critically compare our lives with theirs.

I was extremely sick with both of my pregnancies, the second one even worse than the first. I was in bed most of the time for the second one, too sick to do anything. In the hours I spent there, I often heard the beautiful lady next door out with her perfect twin babies—a boy and a girl—that she had adopted, never having a sick or painful day at all. I allowed myself to become envious of her, comparing our situations and wanting hers and not mine. I couldn’t understand why I, a believer, had to suffer so much, and she, a non-believer, did not have to suffer at all. I was so sick I couldn’t even read or watch television. That meant I wasn’t reading the Bible either. Only when a friend would come over occasionally and read it to me did I have that wonderful comfort.

After my baby was born, my neighbor brought her son over in a twin stroller to show me. Her daughter was at home. She told me that the little girl had severe disabilities, and they were going to have to move out of their home and closer to the hospital, where her daughter could receive the therapy she would need for the rest of her life. I was shocked and heartbroken for her.

After they left I cried and repented before God for my envy and lack of appreciation for what He had given me. I was extremely embarrassed that I had allowed such awful thoughts. I was embarrassed before myself and before God. It’s very embarrassing to tell you this. I deeply regret my attitude of ungratefulness to God. It still pains me to think of it, and I cry about it even now. I vowed I would never again be ungrateful for what God has given me, no matter the situation. I would never again so diminish His love for me in my heart or limit my love and praise of Him. I thank God for every miserable and painful moment of my pregnancies, and I would go through it all again to have my children. I thank God every day for them. God’s mercy and love toward me is beyond what I deserve and always has been.

No matter what someone else has that we think we are missing, we don’t walk in their shoes. We should love them and be happy for them. And we should also love who God made us to be and the life He has given us. No matter how much we think we have suffered, there are others who have suffered more. No matter how bad we have it, there are others who have it far worse.

We have to get up every day and thank God that we woke up alive—no matter how bad we feel that day. We have to thank God for what we
can
do instead of complaining before Him about what we think we can’t do. And every time we thank God for something we
can
do, let’s pray for someone we know of who is unable to do what they want to do. That is loving others, and it will change our perspective on everything.

Stop Thinking Bad Thoughts About Your Life

If you find that you are constantly thinking critical thoughts about your life, ask God to help you find your hope in Him. If something needs to be changed and you have the ability to change it, do so. But if there is nothing you can do to effect a needed change, then ask God to do the impossible. Lay the situation at His feet. Ask
Him to help you see all the good things about your life and thank Him for them. Ask Him to help you see your life and your future from His perspective. Ask Him to change what needs to be changed. He is probably waiting for you to come to Him for His help. He may want the changes you want even more than you do, but He is waiting on you to depend on Him. And the reason He is doing that is because He wants to take you to places you cannot get to without Him.

God has blessings for your life you cannot even imagine right now, but He may be waiting for you to be perfected in love. That is, often God waits to bless us until we bless others in the way He wants us to—by showing love to them that comes from His heart to ours. That is one of the great blessings He gives us when we learn to love others as He wants us to. And the opposite is also true. We shut off blessings God wants to give us because we have failed to love others. This is a very big issue with Him, and too many people do not even realize it.

When you come to
truly
love and appreciate who God made you to be, you won’t be filled with pride. You won’t focus intensely on yourself. And you won’t be envious because you don’t need to be. You are you and that is good, and you don’t need to be anyone else.

Loving yourself and your life doesn’t by any means indicate that you think you’re better than anyone else. It means you appreciate the good things about yourself and the life God has given you. You realize you and your life are a work in progress, and you anticipate great things ahead. You don’t compare yourself to anyone else, and you don’t compare your life to anyone else’s.

No matter what your past has been—you may even feel unloved, unlovable, or unwanted as I did—God sees you as valuable, with great purpose and gifts He has put in you to use for His glory. But you have to be free of the past. It does not define you today.
God
defines you. His Spirit in you defines you. Jesus defined you as being worth dying for in order to give you eternal life with Him. So do not
judge yourself by your past. Yesterday is gone. Today is a new day. Just because things happened a certain way in the past doesn’t mean they will happen that way today. Do not limit what God wants to do in and through you today and in the future.

You do have to forgive anyone who rejected you or made you feel unloved. Forgive yourself for not being all
you
expect yourself to be. Stop dwelling on what you think you
should
be, and start dwelling on all you
can
be in the Lord. Stop focusing on what you are not and concentrate on who you
are.
God’s love liberates you to be all He created you to be. His love has set you free of your own self-imposed limits. His love
releases
you. It doesn’t control you. But you have to open up to His love fully and receive it every day. When you criticize yourself instead of believing what God says about you, you are not fully receiving His love.

Each morning recognize that God has given you this day. Say, “This is the day the L
ORD
has made. [I] will rejoice and be glad in it” (Psalm 118:24). And no matter what happens say, “This was the L
ORD
’s doing; it is marvelous in [my] eyes” (Psalm 118:23). Think of Jesus and how He was rejected, yet He fulfilled a great and magnificent purpose. “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Psalm 118:22).

I have been rejected and am now fulfilling God’s purpose for my life. If I had ended my life, as I once attempted to do and was planning again to accomplish, I would never have known what God had planned for me. The same is true for you. Don’t sabotage what He is doing in your life by not loving yourself. That doesn’t mean you are “in love” with yourself, which is prideful and narcissistic. Jesus said to love your neighbor as yourself. That means you must love yourself. There is a connection between loving others and loving yourself. It’s healthy to love who you are—the person God made you to be—and to appreciate the life He has given you to live for Him.

His future for you is good and you will love it, just as you love Him.

Prayer of Love

L
ORD
, thank You that You love me and that You made me for Your purposes. Help me to appreciate all You have put in me. Enable me to recognize the gifts You have given me to be used for Your glory. Enable me to see the good I’m not seeing and reject the self-criticism I focus on. Teach me to love You more and love myself better so I can express love to others with greater clarity.

I confess any feelings I have about my life that are negative and critical. You are in charge of my life, and I trust You to bring good into it. Give me wisdom to see the great things You have put in my life that will be used for Your glory. Help me to love others as You have taught me to love myself—that is, with great appreciation for Your work in me and in them. I know that when I love You, myself, and others that this is the fulfillment of the law (Romans 13:10). I do not want to short-circuit that in any way.

Help me to “pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, and gentleness” because they are beautiful in Your eyes and pleasing to You (1 Timothy 6:11). Lord, You are beautiful and wonderful and lovely and attractive and desirable. Let all that You are shine through all that I am. Help me to love myself in a way that doesn’t say, “I am great,” but rather says, “You are great! And You are in me making me more like You every day.”

In Jesus’ name I pray.

Words of Love

He who gets wisdom loves his own soul; he who keeps understanding will find good.

P
ROVERBS
19:8

Put on love, which is the bond of perfection.

C
OLOSSIANS
3:14

Just as you presented your members as slaves of uncleanness, and of lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves of righteousness for holiness.

R
OMANS
6:19

Flee also youthful lusts; but pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace with those who call on the Lord out of a pure heart.

2 T
IMOTHY
2:22

He who would love life and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips from speaking deceit.

1 P
ETER
3:10

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