Victimizing the victim with shallow one liners is also a choice.
How do you love yourself?
- Thread starter autumn oddity
- Start date
OK. I'll bow out of this nonsense.
are you a victim of abuse?
Asuk, as much as I am a believer in putting on your big boy pants and getting over something, abuse , especially childhood abuse is normally something people can't just "get over"
It perverts your sense of love, your idea of who God really is, and is apparent in everything. When something major such as that happens, we do not have the strength to overcome it, atleast not on our own accord. We must, as with all things, cast it to God, and find out security in God. There will always be side effects from it, and it will continually be a part of your life. But through God we can overcome it.
It can take a very long time though, years, sometimes decades. But so long as you are allowing God to work in you, healing will come.
It perverts your sense of love, your idea of who God really is, and is apparent in everything. When something major such as that happens, we do not have the strength to overcome it, atleast not on our own accord. We must, as with all things, cast it to God, and find out security in God. There will always be side effects from it, and it will continually be a part of your life. But through God we can overcome it.
It can take a very long time though, years, sometimes decades. But so long as you are allowing God to work in you, healing will come.
Maybe you're not saved. I'm saying this because everything you say on the site is about you, and only accusations towards God. God is not a genie to fulfill OUR desires, but gives us peace and joy and fulfillment when we FIRST seek the King of God and His righteousness. Judging God as being right or wrong is pride and arrogance on our part (I'm speaking to myself too). God died for YOU pancakes, why would He not also give you all things necessary to live in this life? There's nothing you can do to curry God's favor, and that's what I see you trying to do with all the actions you're taking except for one: humility. Call out to Him in faith, confess your feelings about Him, repent of them and believing He will hear you and be saved. If these words seem harsh, it only shows they're true.
Not for one moment do I think Pancakes is unsaved. In a mess maybe, but that description covers 90% of the church! Being saved is never an instantaneous process, but something that continues every day till we depart this body.
I am saved for eternity, but my daily life is slow at catching up. Pancakes is a work in progress, something God will finish because he never abandons us.
Pancakes, look at my previous post on letting God love you. Take that challenge as it is life transforming.
Pancakes
You really can choose how you feel. I am not saying that every choice will be an easy one. Letting go of baggage is hard to do because we all want to cling onto the things that hurt us. It's crazy but true.
You can find many examples of people that have had horrible things happen to them and they made a choice to let it go and be happy.
It seems so hard until you do it but after you do it seems so easy.
Besides, do you think God wants you to feel bad all the time? I hope not.
You really can choose how you feel. I am not saying that every choice will be an easy one. Letting go of baggage is hard to do because we all want to cling onto the things that hurt us. It's crazy but true.
You can find many examples of people that have had horrible things happen to them and they made a choice to let it go and be happy.
It seems so hard until you do it but after you do it seems so easy.
Besides, do you think God wants you to feel bad all the time? I hope not.
Pancakes, everyone else seems to have completely ignored my previous comment, No9 on this thread, on letting God love us, so can I again draw your attention to it.
I wrote that comment because it is scriptural truth, and because I saw the healing it brought on me and my abused friends.
One particular friend, now in her 70s, had spent her childhood being passed from one children's home to another, never knowing love or trust from her parents.
Although a Spirit filled believer, she always flinched or winced before God when she prayed, I often saw her do it!
She seriously felt as if God was going to clip her over the head for not being good enough, and for getting things wrong. Her sense of God's fatherhood had been so badly damaged by neglect, abuse and her own negative experiences of fatherhood.
Like most believers, she knew perfectly well all the words about God's love, but that's all that they were, just words. (And that's what I see on this forum!) Her childhood experience, still controlled her emotions more than 60 years later.
One day, based on my own experience, I challenged her to face God and tell Him, "I know you really love me".
It was no surprise to me that she could not do it, but just struggled and wept! That alone showed the emptiness of her belief in God's love. She simply had no idea of how to receive it.
Gradually, by perseverance, she started to confess out those words, "Lord, I know you really love me", the tears started flowing as God ministered his love. The words were a healing balm to her.
This lady's life has been completely transformed by that simple action of speaking out loud her agreement with what God said about her. Those words of truth cancelled all the injurious words from her childhood.
And that's why I wrote post No9, please go and read it, it changed her life!
So far, there have been plenty of comments telling you that you should start to love God, but you cannot possibly love God until you accept his totally perfect and unadulterated love for you. I say unadulterated love because if you think his love is connected to your personal goodness, then it becomes adulterated and earned instead of gifted. John makes that clear.
1John4v19We love because he first loved us. 20Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. 21And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.
This scripture makes it clear that you can only love God and others to the measure that you accept God's love for you, "Because he first loved you!"
If you haven't first received God's love, then you are trying to spread around something you manufactured yourself!
The same applies to loving yourself, you can never truly love yourself until you see yourself as God sees you, and accept his love!
Matthew 22 36-40 [NASB]
Sometimes our need is study, Biblical and also worldly.
We need to be a servant our higher needs, what is good for us. Sometimes, we need to work hard and give our best effort to the task at hand (like we, in love, teach our youngsters).
Sometimes we need joy. Loving ourselves sometimes doing something fun and rejoicing with the Lord in His goodness.
We need to be looking after what is good for us and loving ourselves in that manner, not necessarily being a servant to our wants.
When our needs are addressed in this manner, we can become the servant to the higher needs of those around us.
But both the unselfish loving of ourselves and the loving of those we encounter are subservient to loving God who first Loved us.
"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?"
And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
We are told to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. If we do not know how to properly love ourselves, where does this verse leave our neighbor?And He said to him, " 'YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.' "This is the great and foremost commandment. "The second is like it, 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."
Sometimes our need is study, Biblical and also worldly.
We need to be a servant our higher needs, what is good for us. Sometimes, we need to work hard and give our best effort to the task at hand (like we, in love, teach our youngsters).
Sometimes we need joy. Loving ourselves sometimes doing something fun and rejoicing with the Lord in His goodness.
We need to be looking after what is good for us and loving ourselves in that manner, not necessarily being a servant to our wants.
When our needs are addressed in this manner, we can become the servant to the higher needs of those around us.
But both the unselfish loving of ourselves and the loving of those we encounter are subservient to loving God who first Loved us.
WOW unsaved... no I am saved
when I ave my life to christ..I remeber having a vivd dream of my brothers and I walking up a golden stair case (and alot more i can't remeber at the moment)
One thing about me is I don't pretend .... at all
I don't pretend to be happy when Im not...
I can't believe you would even type the mess you just wrote, to me its an incredible insult after what Ive went through...if I wasn't saved i would gave up after the first week
Like, Im still appalled..
Just because Im not happy all the time, or question God doesn't mean im not saved
Its a process, just because you got it in a year or two doesn't mean its like that foreveryone else.
Your comment was by far the most unhelpful...
you don't know my life or what Im dealing with
so don't accuse me of being unsaved bc I have questions...or issues ...
Thank you ! Im not unsaved because I have issues..sorry my faith isn't as big as some : / but Im still saved
I pray...
and when i went to church w/ my cousin , the pastor pointed me out telling me everything
I prayed for before I came to church...
if I wasn't saved I wouldn't have even went...
But I agree... its a daily process I feel the people I come across is God showing me how He wants me to be;
my friend happy and joyful .. and this lady i met ( just grateful..despite losing 2 small kids)
"I am saved for eternity, but my daily life is slow at catching up"
This is very true : )
I know how to love people; Im nice to my friends, whatever I have food, money (when I can) I give it to em...
At my age, there are often things from my experiences that come to mind when I read about the trials God's people are having...
I can remember a college age Sunday school discussion concerning making spiritual judgments of others based upon their outward joy.
There was one young man who almost always had a big grin on his face. If you mentioned 'smiling Ed', everyone new who you were talking about. And I believe he was genuine. He was a delight to be around. I also noticed that at the end of services when there would be a call for anyone to come forward, either as a step of faith to receive Christ or to be counselled regarding receiving Christ, OR to publicly rededicate their lives to Christ, smiling Ed often went forward to emphasize to himself the truth that dedicating our lives to Christ must be done continually to walk in His path.
There were also members of the congregation that were less outgoing and had multiple personal and family tragedies. Although in the Sunday school class, they were not mentioned by name, nor details given to identify them. The point of the class was that you cannot judge the spirituality of a Christian by their "smile quotient".
Smiling Ed should not be thought more spiritual than those with a more somber demeanor, nor than those that have received harsh trials.
Many of the greatest Christian thinkers had long, painful periods of doubt. When they schooled themselves to keep the faith, remain diligent in Bible studies, held an active prayer life and maintain the fellowship of other Christians, even when they cannot 'feel the presence' it has resulted in a remarkable deepening of faith and understanding of God, their self, and others around them.
Very true,
Mother teresa doubted whether God or heaven even existed...
but according to abdicate I guess she's unsaved as well.......
But at the same time; having the characteristics of joy,perserveance..all the fruits of the spirit are indidcators of Christ's followers..
I noticed a pattern in many chapters of Psalms....
Say for example chapter 13.
A pattern where the first part seems to show a longing or of not of a cheerful note...
And yet, always, at the end part: an affirmation of Faith…
Psalm 13 New King James Version (NKJV)
Trust in the Salvation of the Lord
To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.
13 How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever?
How long will You hide Your face from me?
2 How long shall I take counsel in my soul,
Having sorrow in my heart daily?
How long will my enemy be exalted over me?
3 Consider and hear me, O Lord my God;
Enlighten my eyes,
Lest I sleep the sleep of death;
4 Lest my enemy say,
“I have prevailed against him”;
Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved.
5 But I have trusted in Your mercy;
My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation.
6 I will sing to the Lord,
Because He has dealt bountifully with me.
Nice to friends is good. Compassionate to those that do not necessarily qualify as 'friends' is more the neighbors that Christ was talking about in Matthew 22. Food & money can be used by the Lord to help those in need, and that is also good, but giving to the poor is not the whole of loving your neighbor.
You may need to learn to assess your needs, which may be more than your wants and in love for yourself as God's daughter, address those needs. I wouldn't presume to tell you how to do this, but rather than fretting about emptiness you want filled, fill it with service in the Lord's power.
I will tell you some things that have been a blessing to me... When I lost my job in the economic downturn a few years ago, I started volunteering at the Hospital (and going on job interviews). They have a policy where all patients are given a wheelchair ride to their car. I pushed people around. I also found that while it may have been a comfort to those I gave rides to, I also struck up friendships with the other volunteers, the workers in the gift shops, and many of the nursing staff. I got me away from looking at my problems. I received the greatest share of blessings through this.
I have also sorted food at the local food bank, and went out on their deliveries where they sent trucks of food to areas with needy people.
Recently, after some health issues and surgery, I have become a volunteer helping others that have had similar challenges. All this has kept my focus off any problems I may have been having, and on those I was helping. I have made many friends, but the basis of our relationships is not being nice people to each other, but in service to each other (not always the same thing).
So, I encourage you to love yourself by filling your emptiness with service in His power. You may find that this is the path toward having your specific needs met.