Bible Reading & Memory Verse: Mark 12: 28- 31
One of the teachers of the law came and heard them debating. Noticing that Jesus had given them a good answer, he asked him, “Of all the commandments, which is the most important?” “The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”
Good evening everyone! How was your day? Did you go to church today? What did you learn? I learnt a lot today. At my church, we spoke about whether Christ is David’s son or David’s Lord. We learnt that Christ is both David’s Lord as well as His Son. You might ask How? Well, it was said that the Messiah would come from David’s line. So Son represents the lineage of David. Christ was David’s Lord because Christ is God himself who came down to earth in the flesh. Yup!! That’s what I learnt today? You? Please share and we would post your lessons on our Instagram page.
Before we move on to the message at hand, I would like to dedicate the first week of September to “writers of the Gospel.” What do I mean? Anyone who writes blog posts or anything about the gospel. I will be sharing their messages on Sammie’s Daily Dose for the world to read. If you are interested, please send me a message.
Moving on to the message, today I would like to talk about what I call the 3 in 1 commandment. Yup! You might ask me why I say that because the Bible said two. Well the second part of this message comes in Part A and B. Let’s list them out below;
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your mind and with all your strength.
2a. Love yourself.
2b. Love your neighbor as yourself.
You might realise that I put love yourself as number 2a. I did this because it is important to love yourself. If you do not love yourselves, you will not be able to love your number as yourself. I would say that 2a is a pre- requisite for 2b, which is the main thing God is telling us to do apart from loving Him. For example, when you are in the university, some courses you take are pre-requisite courses. These are compulsory courses you must do and pass before you will be allowed you take up certain courses at a higher level. It’s the same that applies in this case. Loving yourself is necessary and compulsory to be able to loving your neighbor. Loving your neighbor as yourself occurs at a higher level of intimacy with Christ. Why do I say this? To love your neighbor as yourself, you need humility. Yup! Humility to say that “I will treat my fellow brother or sister; the way I would treat myself.” It takes a certain level of understanding and wisdom to achieve this.
There are two types of ‘loving yourself’ that I mostly see around. The first is under- loving and the second is over- loving. Under- loving ourselves is when we just look down upon ourselves and think we don’t deserve anything good that comes to us. This is a bad way of living. God does not like this. He has created you specially in His image. He created you and He saw that it was good in His eyes. If you are good in God’s eyes, why do you belittle yourself? You possess a lot of greatness in you. You need to stand and begin to love yourself.
The second group are over- loving. These people tend to become very selfish. They spend their time chasing what is theirs and what is others. They want to have everything in this world for them. They feel like they are from better social classes than others; the look down on many. They usually attribute their success and wealth to their personal achievements. Are some of these points talking about you? Then you are over- loving of yourself. God frowns on people who are over- loving of themselves.
God wants us to love ourselves, just like Christ loves the Church (Ephesians 5:9). So please I urge you to love yourself correctly, then you will be able fulfill the second part of the Greatest commandment from God. To be able to fulfill this great commandment, we need to ask God to help us achieve this. Most cases, a lot of Christians are able to practice the first part, but falter when it comes to the second part. I pray for you, that you may be able to fulfill the greatest commandment from God.
Just know that if you do not lo