These are the words of Jesus:
Mark 12:30-31
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul 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.
We are told by Jesus to love God with all of us - heart, soul, mind and strength. That is not possible if we are living a fragmented and splintered life. If we not take care to integrate all those facets of our lives - our mind, our heart, our soul and strength we are not bringing our all to Him.
To integrate our whole self requires a discipline of self-care - to know all those parts of us. That is why we check in with ourselves every day in our time together to know ourselves so that our Father can know us.
Jesus goes a step further in this passage, in two words that we very often overlook.
Listen carefully as I read Jesus words to us again.
‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’
Loving yourself is foundational to loving others. Not loving yourself in a superficial way, but in a holy way.
Psalm 139
You shaped me first inside, then out;
you formed me in my mother’s womb.
I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking!
Body and soul, I am marvelously made!
Do you see yourself the way Gods sees you? Can you recognize the beauty He sees in you? Because He does - and He wants you to see it too.
Let's use this Psalm to pray:
Father, You shaped me first inside, then out; you formed me in my mother’s womb. I thank you, High God—you’re breathtaking! Body and soul, I am marvelously made! And with all that I am, I love and worship you. As above, so below.