yesterday was so awesome!!!
lucas and the worship team did an amazing job during chapel...i've been hearing really great things from different people.
and the night gathering at the occ was pretty awesome as well! i'm really bad at estimating but we probably had 100-200 people there...?
anyway, it doesn't matter the number. we know God brought everyone that needed to be there because we prayed for it :)
the holy spirit was truly there...it just felt so right. we got some awesome artwork that people made as a form of worship and left behind so we may put that up in the mallway this week for your viewing pleasuring, but mostly to honor God :)
a few of us that prayed after it was all over got really awesome encouragement from one of the housekeeping guys.
he told us how he believed our campus truly needed this and that of all the attributes of God, we were capturing his core that fed
into all the other parts (he demonstrated this point with a floor lamp haha). but yeah, SUPER encouraging.
he also told us that exactly what we were doing was going to stomp on satan (that's what we were praying for when he interjected)
so, yay God!!!
special thank you to felicia styers and bianca tavera for planning and preparing for monday...you two are loved! :)
also, thank you to all who shared and rapped and prayed and helped set up and clean up...you are all loved as well!
heck, if you're reading this email, you're loved :)
okay, i'm going to stop rambling now.
lovelovelove
ps- feel free to forward this email to anyone you want! and email me if you'd like me to add anyone to the mailing list. thanks! :)
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Tuesday: Love Yourself
Jer Nelsen Artwork: Commons slideshow, all day
the gathering: PPAC, 8pm//Student Testimonies: Nathan Engle, Elle Kernitz, Megan Miller, Dwight Piraino
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Revolutionary Devotional Thought by Floyd Barringer
Tuesday
Love Yourself
“With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God. Out of the same mouth proceed blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be so.” James 3:9-10 NKJV
I had always thought that Christians were suppose to be selfless, always acting without a thought to their own desires or wants. In fact, they were suppose to sacrifice themselves readily for others, no matter the cost. Of course, you can imagine how my gears started to grind when coming to verses like Matthew 22 where we are commanded to love our neighbor AS ourselves. A similar command is from St. Paul in Ephesians 5:25-29
“Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless. In this same way, husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it, just as Christ does the church”
There does not seem to be any getting around it. If you want to love others, you must first love God AND you must also find that you must love yourself.
How does that work?
I'm finding it rather hard to find a passage in the Bible that exclusively and exhaustively covers the topic of loving yourself. I'm wondering if loving yourself was a no-brainer to the ancients or they all simply did not suffer from self esteem issues and problems of forgiving themselves.
Regardless, we are made in the image of God and that at least gives some value to us. I suspect that we then cannot completely love God if we do not accept ourselves. Yes, that probably means forgiving ourselves for things we had done in the past. But first, how do we hate ourselves?
There are some people who feel they are worthless. They give themselves a hard time and are perhaps their own harshest critic. It's the antidote to pride in its worse form. The problem is that it is its own kind of poison. Yes, there is merit in reminding ourselves not to think too highly of ourselves but there is such a thing as taking it too far. Besides, to rob ourselves of any worth is the work of evil. It was the Devil and sin that deceived and doomed man to return to the dust. It was God who took dust from the ground, gave it immeasurable worth, made it new, and THEN created it into Man, in God's own image.
Part of hating ourselves may stem from lying to ourselves. Somehow we get that we are not to lie to others, but alas, the commandment is “Thou shalt not bear false witness to others” it is “Thou shalt not bear false witness.” Somehow, I don't think God appreciates us lying to ourselves.
That is why it is important to know who we are ourselves and to accept our weakness and faults. Are you good at something? Well, don't deny it or shun it or tell yourself that you're in fact bad with it. God gave you talents for a reason. It is a waste and an insult to God not to use it. In fact, it may even be a gift from the Holy Spirit. They say that it is rude to refuse a gift. You can imagine refusing a gift from the Holy Spirit. It hurts others but it will also hurt you. Are you struggling with something? Welcome to being a human in a post fallen world. We all have our weaknesses. That is why God gave us others and His Son to help us get past those struggles.
I sometimes imagine the angels in heaven scratching their heads in utter disbelief at what they were seeing. Did God really know what He was doing this time? Yes, creating the world and everything, that's cool. But to make something in His own image and give it free will? Sure, they're good now, and they have the possibility for everything to go well, but then what if they choose not to cooperate? These human creatures aren't omniscient, they don't know everything. What if they blow it?
And yet somehow, the God of the universe is desperately in love with them. If God loves them, us, then somehow we must find within ourselves to love others but also ourselves.
We know we are to forgive others their trespasses, but we must also forgive ourselves for the things we have done.
The reasons to this I suspect are as follows. How can we fully love God if we do not allow Him to speak to us on how we can better love ourselves? We are created in His image so how can we both proclaim to love God while all the while tearing down His image in us? How then can we truly forgive others if we do not learn to forgive ourselves? How can we love others fully if we do not accept where we are and love ourselves? To claim to love God and or our neighbors while hating ourselves is to give a lie. It is not giving our very best.
First, pray to God to help us and guide us. There is such a thing as taking loving ourselves too far, but there is also such a thing as unhealthily “loving” others. That is why we need the source of all love and wisdom to guide us. Then, accept where you are at. Can you get better at some things? Yes. Are there some things you may struggle with? Possibly, it's called being human. Yes, we're still dust, but we're also new creations in Christ. Whether we like it or no, we bear God's image. It may be marred and hard to see, but it is there nonetheless. We find that the image of the One who loves perfectly is in us, and we too must love perfectly. We must love ourselves.
