The enemy has managed to create many thoughts of lies in our minds, both about ourselves and about God.
God gave us a command in Matt 22:37-39 that sums up the law.
37Jesus replied: " `Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: `Love your neighbor as yourself.'C 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
To love God
If you don’t see God as a good God wanting the best for you, you won’t love Him with all of your heart. The devil bombards our minds with thoughts of lies. You must recognize where these thoughts are coming from, because when something bad happens, you may blame God, instead of remembering that God wants the best for you.
So, the first thing you need to do is to tear down the strongholds in your mind, so you can love God more.
2 Cor 10:4-5
. 4The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. 5We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
It is in our minds that the enemy attacks us and makes strongholds. The best way to tear down these strongholds is to gain knowledge about who God is. The Word is our main source to learn about Him. But, reading the Bible is not enough; you need to apply it too! Knowledge about a person is not sufficient, you also need to have a personal relationship with them. I know a lot about Prince Haakon Magnus of Norway, by reading about him in newspapers and magazines, but I don’t know him as a person. It’s the same way with God. Through the Bible you read about Him, but you don’t know him personally until after you apply the Bible into your life, and then you get to know Him more and more. Let’s look at scripture that talks about God’s character. When we read the Old Testament it often seems like God is an angry God that wants to take revenge. But is that true? No! If you look closely you will find a God that is slow to anger and rich in love (Ps 103:8).
Lets look at a scripture from Isaiah.
Is 49:14-16
14But Zion said, "The LORD has forsaken me,
the Lord has forgotten me."
\5"Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!
16See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands;
your walls are ever before me.
The prophet Isaiah wrote this to a people that had repeatedly and continually done many things that were evil in the eyes of God. Read Kings to know about all of the horrible things the Israelites did. God even called His people prostitutes because they fornicated with other gods. (See Ezek 23). Despite this, God says that he will not forget them or leave them. What a God He is! How do you think God looks at you? Has He forgotten you? No! Like a mother that doesn’t forget her child, so is God towards you.
The Psalms convey other things that God said to these same Israelites.
Ps 103:2-13
3who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,
4who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,
5who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.
6The LORD works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.
7He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel:
8The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love.
9He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever;
10he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
11For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him;
12as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
13As a father has compassion on his children, so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
Again, this shows us something about God’s character. He does not deal with us according to our sins or what we deserve. It doesn’t say that if we sin there will be no consequences (See 1 Samuel 11), but that He will still love us like a father and not reject us, even when we sin.
The more we love God, the more we are able to love others and ourselves. That’s why it is so important to know God and His character. He is not a vengeful God wanting to punish us for every little thing we do.
You might have a negative association when you hear the name father (or mother). Your father may criticize you for all of the things you have done, and he doesn’t forget them either, but continually reminds you when you do a similar act. Or, it could be that your parents have put high demands on you and you feel that you have never reached up to them. Maybe they are very moody, and you never know when they will get angry. One day your parents could be in a good mood, another day they will get irritated over small things. All of these thoughts spoil your understanding of who God is, and bring lies into your mind about His character. Because your parents have placed high demands on you, you feel that God does the same, and you feel you have to do a lot to satisfy His demands.
God is not tolerant
A word of caution: we need to remember that God is a holy God, and He does not tolerate the wrong things we do. Another lie the devil tells us is that God is tolerant, which does not bring us freedom. God is a patient God and He waits for us to repent. After we repent He forgets all the wrongs we have committed and doesn’t hold them against us.
Psalm 103:10
he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.
So, the first step toward your true freedom is to see who God is. This helps you to love others and yourself.
To love yourself
When you realize how you are created in God’s image, you will be free to love yourself. To love yourself doesn’t mean to worship yourself, but to accept the person you are, which includes your outward appearance and your personality. Here, the world has fouled many of us up with lies that are told to us by television, films, and magazines. Some believe that you need to have a body like Julia Roberts or to be cool like Leonardo Di Caprio. But what is really cool or pretty? Are the world’s standards different then God’s? Yes!! You are different and unique, created by God. He didn’t make a prototype of a person but he has made you one of a kind. Maybe you are trying to be like these popular people or somebody else, however you will never accomplish this, because you were never meant to be like others. You will never be free until you accept this fact.
I have struggled with this a lot because I was a very shy and quiet person. For many years I had a hard time accepting this, which caused me to become even quieter and more insecure as a person. Slowly God has delivered me from these thoughts, more in the last few years, but some is probably still left. God has really worked in me.
The first thing I had to do to become free was to accept my personality. Before I was always focused on my weaknesses and how I should have been. The turning point was when I started to focus on my good skills, abilities and potential and then developed them.
This was not easy for me, especially in the beginning and it has been a long process, but I can say today that God has delivered me in many ways (read more about this in my teaching “God wants you.”).
I have been throughout the world a lot and it is fun to see what different cultures value as pretty and popular. Some years ago I was in Ethiopia with a mission team. One day our translator thought he was giving a compliment to one of the girls on the team. He said: “You have gained weight.” The girl was extremely offended, but the translator meant it as a compliment. In his culture, it is acceptable to have extra weight; it means that you are wealthy.
Here in the west we do all that we can to get a tan because it is connected to beauty. When I am in an Asian culture I see the opposite. They try to cover themselves up so they won’t get tan. To be white is beauty. In all the films and TV series in Thailand you almost only see very white Asian people. They look like Europeans without a tan, even if they are Asian.
So beauty (or the way we behave) is often connected to culture. Remember that God has created you uniquely; you are beautiful in His eyes. No one can take that away from you! Start to love yourself. God has given this command, and it will set you free. You don’t need to be a copy of anyone else, there are already enough of them, but you can be free to be the one God has created you to be!
Psalm 139:2-18
1O LORD, you have searched me and you know me.
2You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.
3You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.
4Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O LORD.
5You hem me in--behind and before; you have laid your hand upon me.
6Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
7Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?
8If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths,A you are there.
9If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,
10even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.
11If I say, "Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,"
12even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
13For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb.
14I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
15My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
16your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
17How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!
18Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
To love others
When you are free to love yourself, it is also easier to love others. It is difficult to love others if you don’t love yourself. A sin we often commit is to envy others that have more success than we have. We become self-centered, bitter and feel sorry for ourselves. Did you know that to not envy is one of the Ten Commandments? It is the last one: You shall not covet. That’s why Jesus also says that to love God and your neighbor as yourself sums up the whole law. Not only the Ten Commandments, but also the whole Law of Moses, as you can read in Deuteronomy and the other books of Moses. (Deuteronomy sums up what the other books have already said.)
When you start to gain more knowledge about God, get to know Him better, see who you are in God, accept the one He has created you to be, and then you will be free to love yourself and others.
If you are not free, you will have a difficult time setting others free.
