Love Self ... Deny Self: Which is God's Way?

Love self ... deny self: which is God's way?  Are we not commanded to do both? We know and understand that the first and greatest command is to love God, but is not the second to love your neighbor as you love yourself (see Matthew 22:37-39)? Isn't this a command to love your neighbor and to love yourself? Try reading the passage again. To love yourself would make a third command, right?  The Word says the second, not a third.  The command is to love your neighbor AS you love yourself.  We are neither commanded here nor any other place in Scripture to love ourselves. I believe God knows that we love ourselves, so there is no reason to command us to do so. After loving Him first, the second command is to love your neighbor. How?  AS you love yourself. 

So therefore, the greatest love cannot be learning to love yourself, as the world teaches.  God's way is not to love yourself but to deny yourself.  Really, you may be thinking.  Your next thought might be, I don't believe that.  And your thoughts may continue -- if I don't love and highly esteem myself, how can I be okay?  How can I be successful? How can I be victorious?  If my focus is on loving myself, how can I obey the command to deny myself?  What a dilemma? What really is God's way?

How do I receive God's great and precious promises?  He says that I can do all things ... I am the head not the tail ... I'm above not beneath ... the lender not the borrower ... will eat the best of the land ... nothing is impossible ... successful in everything I put my hand to ... and so much more.  Why do I not have these things?  Why is this not my experience?  What am I missing? What do I have to do differently?  Glad you asked.  If you believe that everything that you need for life and godliness is found in Christ Jesus, then consider this instruction from Luke 9:23-24.  Then he said to them all: ‎“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it."

Deny himself … deny myself.  Now what does that mean? 

On the Brink of Disaster, part 3

On the brink of disaster ... at the edge of the cliff ... on a slippery slope ... at death's door ... in the pit of hell … unbearable suffering, is this you?  Ever been there?  Ever felt that way? Are you there now?

Are you being tempted?  Or, are you being tested?  Is there a difference between the two, you may be thinking? Yes, there is a difference.  God tests us, satan tempts us. While satan tempts, God may use that circumstance as a test to strengthen us. Even in temptation, God has already provided a way of escape (see 1 Corinthian 10:13).  God cannot and does not send temptation (see James 1:13).  Both tests and temptations provide opportunity for us to be obedient to the Word of God. 

No matter whether you're being tempted or you're being tested, you can overcome and be victorious.  Resist the temptation, pass the test.  This is a reminder of another of God's precious promises found in 1 Peter 5:10.  "And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast."  What in your experience may seem like forever, God calls a little while.  Consider Joseph as an example.  He was in the dungeon one day and made second in command in a foreign land before that same day was over.  When God restores, He makes you complete and what you ought to be in His sight.  He plants your feet securely on solid ground.  He does the impossible in the presence of your enemies. And you say, thank you Father, thank you Jesus!

On the Brink of Disaster, part 2

Sometimes, we find ourselves not merely on the brink of disaster, we are actually in the fire.  Like the three Hebrew boys -- Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, you may have been thrown into the fire.  Or you might have fallen into the fire.  Either way, you are in the fire.  Is all lost? Is victory or success now out of reach?  Are you in an impossible situation? Has the enemy won?  Does being in the fire represent the end? No, not so for the three Hebrew boys.  God is no respecter of persons. Would God do something for them that He'd not do for you?

The fire -- like the issues of our lives, like the storms we face -- may be so hot and intense that our enemies are burned and destroyed by the fire just as the soldiers were who carried Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego to the door of the furnace.   But not us!  When you have been thrown into the fire, know that you will walk through it.  Your body will not be harmed.  Not a hair on your head will be singed. Your clothes will not be scorched.  You won't even smell like fire.  Really, you may be thinking.  Yes, really.  Read Daniel 3. 

Now guess what else.  Your promotion is on the other side of the fire.  How do I know that?  God's Word says so.  "Then the king promoted Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the province of Babylon" (Daniel 3:30).