“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” (Matt. 6:22-23a, NKJV)
Two of the greatest battles of faith that the believer needs to engage in is firstly our inability to accept and love ourselves, and secondly to forgive ourselves for what we are, what we’ve done, and perhaps even more importantly – what we haven’t done. The perversity with which you and I have been rendered crooked in our past is a reality, and this is often the reason why we are disdainful of certain aspects of ourselves. This means that the eye which we cast on ourselves, as is explained in the opening Scripture, is bad, and when we look at ourselves in such a perverse manner the whole body is cast in darkness.
The important process of self-acceptance and the restoration of love for the self is what we are currently discussing. We found out that your identity in Christ is a prerequisite for achieving spiritual wholeness and, springing from that, spiritual maturity and authority. In earlier teachings we dealt with the three steps in the healing process of the wounded self. To summarise:
- The first step in creating self-acceptance is that you need to accept who and what you are, today, before God,
- The second step is to repent that your image of yourself is largely shaped by others. Their perception of you largely influences how you see yourself. Repent of the fact that this image is a false one.
- The third step in healing your rejection and hatred of yourself is to start understanding how God truly feels and thinks about you, and that this is directed by his burning, unconditional love.
The third step is not an overnight process. We do not truly know the nature of God, and thus we attribute all kinds of bad things to Him, as if He is our enemy. A recent study by Baylor University that looked at the experience Christians in the United States have of God’s nature had the following findings: 31% of people believe in an authoritarian God; 24% believe in an absent or distant God; 16% believe in a critical God; and only 23% in a merciful God. The remaining 6% have no particular view of God, which in itself is interesting, and which reminds me of Zeph. 1:12: “And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and punish the men who are settled in complacency, who say in their heart,
‘The Lord will not do good, nor will He do evil.’”
Only a quarter of believers experience God as merciful. And this does not even necessarily mean that you then experience him as loving, or good. This supposed cold God’s way of looking at you then becomes the way you also look at yourself, as is reflected in Matt. 6:22-23a.
Given where we come from: “For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another” (Tit. 3:3) we cannot accept the “kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man” (verse 4). It was “not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us” (verse 5), so “that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life” (verse 7). Take note of these characteristics of God that are offered to you without having to do anything, and without deserving it at all: goodness, love, grace.
Hear this from the mouth of God himself: “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with lovingkindness I have drawn you.” (Jer. 31:3). In Eph 2:4-5 the amazing grace of God for the fallen man is beautifully described: “But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ …” You and I can merely say, like 1 John 4:19: “We love Him because He first loved us.”
If this true state of affairs, of being “beloved by the Lord” (2 Thess. 2:13), becomes a reality for your life, it will bring healing for your self-hatred and rejection. If the God of the universe feels about me like that, how can I judge myself otherwise? Clearly it is true where God says, “the way I think (about you) is beyond the way you think” (Isa. 55:9, Msg). The Message aptly paraphrases Rom. 9:25 – “I’ll call nobodies and make them somebodies; I’ll call the unloved and make them beloved.”
An interesting aspect of this comes to the fore in Luke 7:47: “Therefore I say to you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much. But to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little.” Our nature is to be “unloving” (Rom. 1:31; 2 Tim. 3:3), but when you come to the realisation of the “great grace” (Acts 4:33), and ACCEPT IT, you will be able to love in abundance. This is a very important facet of our ability to love God: “But if anyone loves God, this one is known by Him.”
Remember – there are many believers who are “pure”, and to whom, like the virgins waiting on his return, He says: “But he answered and said, Verily I say unto you, I know you not.” There is also the group of which Luke 13:26-27 speaks: “then you will begin to say, ‘We ate and drank in Your presence, and You taught in our streets.’ But He will say, ‘I tell you I do not know you, where you are from. Depart from Me, all you workers of iniquity.’” And then also the group of which Matt. 7:22-23 speaks: “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
It is imperative to be known by God – but this is impossible without loving God, and that in turn cannot happen naturally, especially not if I project onto Him the way I think about myself. “And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” (1 John 4:16).
But, “hope does not disappoint”, Rom. 5:5 explains – “because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us”. If we know this it is easy to realise that the greatest enemy of manifesting the love of God within you is the fact that you cannot love and accept yourself. You need to accept and love yourself as image of God. This enables you to know Him, and thus releases his unending love within us.
- Selah: Ask the Holy Spirit to teach you how to know Him.
- Read: 119:1-88; 2 Chr. 1; 1 Kings. 3-4; Ps. 72.
- Memorise: 119:88 (note the synchronicity!).
- For a more in-depth understanding: Read Leon Morris’ Testaments of Love.
