Knowing you were taking this journey with me and memorizing scripture alongside me last week brought me so much joy! It’s also the much needed accountability I had been hoping for. My prayer for you has been that God be present and bring you comfort and clarity as you spend time with Him. I hope you felt that presence this past week and that you continue to feel that even stronger as your relationship with Him grows.
I want to challenge you to look at this week’s verse from a different perspective. I encourage you to read all of Mark chapter 12, but especially verses 28-34. Jesus was asked “of all the commandments, which is the most important?” Our verse this week is His answer! Jesus didn’t just give us the most important commandment, He also gave us the second most important, and that’s the one I want to challenge your perspective on. In verse 31 it says “The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.” I’d like to highlight the words… AS YOURSELF in this verse.
Do you love yourself? How do you talk to yourself? Do you love the body God gave you? Are you catching onto the point I’m trying to make here? You can’t love your neighbor if you don’t love yourself! How often do we encounter a mean hateful person and know that their behavior towards us has nothing to do with us and everything to do with them? How you treat other people is a direct reflection of how you feel about yourself! We’ve all heard the verse “Do to others as you would have them do to you” in Luke 6:31. If you have thoughts that you aren’t good enough, smart enough, pretty enough… if you wake up every morning disappointed with what you see in the mirror and have a negative internal dialog then you canNOT follow one of the most important commandments! YIKES!
Guess who’s behind the negative self talk and the feelings you have about not being good enough? The Devil. He whispers the “you’re not good enough” LIE in your ear as often as he can. Why? Because he knows that if you listen to his lies you can’t follow God’s second most important commandment! What you focus on expands, which is EXACTLY why I decided to take this 52 week journey. It’s time we replace the lies we are told by Satan everyday with God’s TRUTH. Let’s expand His truth, not Satan’s lies!
I want to treat others with LOVE, kindness, and compassion, and give grace so others can feel and experience Christ when they are around me. I have a lot of work to do to get there, and I know the work starts with how I feel/think/talk about myself. Keep reading if you’re interested to know a few things God thinks about you. AND… Check out the week #2 video I made about Mark 12:30-31.
WHAT DOES GOD
THINK ABOUT YOU?
God loves you enough that He sent His one
and only son to die for you! (John 3:16)
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He loves you so much that you are called His child.
(1st John 3:1)
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Zephaniah 3:17 says “The LORD your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.”
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He loves you so much He has plans for your future! His plans are good! (Jeremiah 29:11-13… this is one to memorize!)
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God loves you so much He created you in His own image! He knows the number of hairs on your head, the words on your tongue before you speak and He tells us we are fearfully and wonderfully made!
(Genesis 1:27; Matthew 10:30; Psalm 139:4, Psalm 139:14)
Know you are loved,
