Love yourself?

I just heard yet another teaching on “Love your neighbour as you love yourself” where the focus of the teaching is that I should love myself.  Is it just me, or does this seem totally stupid?  It seems to me that a reversal of perspective is what is being called for, a perspective where I am not the focus or center.
They way I read it, the “love yourself” bit is rather assumed.  No one ever hated himself.  Not even a suicide hates himself – in fact he loves himself entirely too much.  He loves himself to the exclusion of the whole world as good ol’ GK puts it.  I suppose many people do not like themselfs, but every person loves himself.  To teach people to love themselves is to teach the opposite of what the commandment teaches.  The point of the command is to look to the needs of others in the same way that you look to the needs of yourself.  Love is not primarily about how you feel.  It is about what you do.  You love yourself by taking care of yourself, by looking out for your self interest.  You love your neighbour by taking care of him, by looking out for his self interest.
If I hear another such thoughless twisting of this teaching of the Lord, I think I’ll scream!  OK.  Maybe I won’t scream, but I’ll mumble under my breath…

All His Wonders

        
I Will Tell of All His Wonders
originally written for the "People We Know" section of the PGCC newsletter Nov. 2000      

Would you be surprised to find out that I was not always a believer and that I did not grow up in a Christian home? Until I was 14, I did not know even one Christian and thoughts of God never entered my mind

Family life during my early teen years was not easy. My father was an alcoholic, and my mother had issues of her own. Home life was filled with strife and tension. I remember once, on the way home from school, breaking down and crying on the school bus (sitting beside the school tough-guy) because of the weight of our home life.

My mom, brother and I had been attending an organization that intends to help the families of alcoholics. But this didn't really help since it only aggravated my dad and offered no solution to the situation. At a certain point, my mom decided she couldn't handle the situation any longer and decided to leave my dad. I was in full agreement since I couldn't stand being around either. However, a family friend encouraged my mom to talk with a particular pastor before she made any rash decisions. The pastor didn't say very much, but gave my mom a book to read called "Prison to Praise" by Merlin Carothers. While reading this book in bed one night, my mom gave over her life to Jesus and experienced a dramatic conversion. She also decided to stay with my dad.

Mom began attending this church that was experiencing revival of sorts. Actually, the whole area of the Comox Valley where we lived was experiencing a wave of real conversions and baptisms of the Holy Spirit. My mom got me to attend the youth group at this church, and this was a youth group like nothing I've seen since. The group was large for the size of the church - about 60 kids in a church of about 250. Everyone would sing worship songs for about an hour, followed by a 20-minute Bible study, and then they would hold hands and pray, one-by-one around the circle, for about half an hour. Each person would pray as we went around the circle and I, without a clue, would say something similar to the guy next to me - I didn't know a thing and was totally ignorant about the Lord. I knew right away that these kids had something that I didn't.

Although I knew nothing about the Lord - no one had ever told me anything - somehow I knew that I needed to ask Jesus into my heart. So that's what I did every night for the next 6 months. I didn't know that I needed only to commit my life to Him, and put my trust in Him. At the time my bedroom was separate from the main house in a travel trailer. In the privacy of this trailer I would pray aloud and sing praise and worship songs to the Lord and began reading the Bible like crazy. Before long I understood who Jesus was and began to really fall in love with Him.

My father had noticed a big change in my mom since she had given her life to the Lord and agreed to go with her to a Full Gospel Businessman's dinner. The Full Gospel Businessmen were an international association of businessmen with local chapters that organized monthly dinner meetings where an invited guest would tell the story of how Christ rescued them. At one of these meetings, everything that was said seemed to speak directly to Dad and by the end of the meeting he gave his life to the Lord. He came home that night five feet off the ground, weeping and laughing. Wow, what a change! I was still pretty clueless and wondered to myself, "What happened to Dad?". From that day onward my dad has never had the urge to drink and was totally healed of his alcoholism.

By the time that my Dad gave his heart to the Lord, everyone in our family had given their hearts to the Lord. From those days until today, our family situation has been made healthy and whole, and we enjoy mutual love, affection, and peace .

Since Jesus invaded my life and set it aright, He has blessed my in more ways than I can count. Life has had its difficulties of course, but what a difference He made! Life with Jesus in control has been an adventure full of hope and joy whereas before it was full of strife and sorrow. As one of our songwriters has said, "He lifted me out of the miry pit, and set my feet upon a Rock"!


     

Creation, Authority,

A new perspective on the first few chapters of Genesis has transformed my reading of the the rest of the bible. Somehow I missed a significant point of these first couple of chapter. Not surprising really, since I've only ever heard one or two really insightful teachings on the subject. The part that I missed so completely was all the language about kingship or rule. Here's how it goes...
God creates the realms first, the sea, the land, the heavens, the day, the night. Then he creates the lights--the greater light to govern (rule) the day, the lesser light to govern the night. After filling the realms with creatures he creates mankind: "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth."
Of course, this authority to rule was derivative and not inherent. That is, the authority to rule the earth and its creatures was contingent on our allegience and obedience to the King of Kings. We blew it having barely started.

Genesis further recounts that after we royally screwed up in the Garden, the order of authority became totally distorted. This distorted order affected all the primary relationships:
(a) Between the woman and the man, "Yet your desire will be [to rule over] your husband, and he will rule over you." Permanent power stuggle. Since man would not submit to the rule of God, even his most intimate relationships lack peace and order.
(b) Between mankind and the earth, "Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you; and you will eat the plants of the field; by the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.". Since we would not willingly obey the King with regard to the fruit of the tree, the ground would not longer submit to rule of mankind so as to willingly yield its fruit.
(c) Between God and mankind, "therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden...He drove the man out". Since we would not submit to the rule of God, we lost the relationship with God.

So what difference does this make? Think about it. What did Jesus preach about when he travelled around Judea? The message was, the Kingdom (Rule) of God is at hand -- right here, just beyond our sight, breaking into our dismal world with brilliant rays of light. Hearing this message of Jesus in the light of Genesis 1-3 revolutionizes my ideas about what it means to be 'saved', what it means to be a 'christian', what it means to pray, and what it means to call Him Lord!

The King has come and will come again. Those who love Him and submit to His rule begin to see the restoration of authority in life and in prayer and will enjoy future fullness of restored authority in the New Creation when He returns. There's so much that could be said here, but this is merely five loaves, two fishes...

Here we go a bloggin'

I haven't the patience, or the time, to write a book, or even a interesting article, but I still have something I want to say. Here begins a running commentary on...stuff. Don't expect this to be too amazing. It is what it is...five loaves, two fishes.