To Love Your Neighbor, Love Yourself First

Gal 5:14 says: “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this; Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”

TODAY, I want to stress the importance of loving yourself.

If you don’t love yourself, you will not love others.

- What is it about your neighbor that you must love?

- Who is your neighbor?

Those are questions for another day.

The question NOW is Do you love yourself?

If you don’t love yourself, you cannot love your neighbor!

Because you have to love your neighbor AS YOU LOVE YOURSELF.

- What is the love of self?

- How can you love yourself?

- How can you show love to yourself?

Love of self is not a selfish love or loving self, i.e., the flesh.

It is not giving your flesh ALL it wants all the time.

As a matter of fact it is the opposite…

è It is giving yourself (flesh) what it needs, and not what it wants.

Your flesh is human nature àit wants everything it doesn’t need.

Loving yourself means:

- Conquering your desires

- Being able to know what is good for yourself.

If your child wants a car at age 5, for example…

Loving yourself means:

- Eating what is good and nourishing, not junks

- Doing what is “age appropriate.”

- Dressing respectfully

- Exercising your body to keep moving

- Hydrating your body

- Nourishing your body enough to be healthy

Eph 5:28  So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself.

Eph 5:29  For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

- Physical

- Mental

- Spiritual

- Medical

- Social

- Environmental