S
Sirk
Guest
I don't think people are being mean. I think that most here want to help you and authentically care for you. The responsibility to separate what is and isn't helpful to you lies with you.
Loving Yourself Thread
- Thread starter JFSurvivor
- Start date
-
Christian Chat is a moderated online Christian community allowing Christians around the world to fellowship with each other in real time chat via webcam, voice, and text, with the Christian Chat app. You can also start or participate in a Bible-based discussion here in the Christian Chat Forums, where members can also share with each other their own videos, pictures, or favorite Christian music.
If you are a Christian and need encouragement and fellowship, we're here for you! If you are not a Christian but interested in knowing more about Jesus our Lord, you're also welcome! Want to know what the Bible says, and how you can apply it to your life? Join us!
To make new Christian friends now around the world, click here to join Christian Chat.
I don't think people are being mean. I think that most here want to help you and authentically care for you. The responsibility to separate what is and isn't helpful to you lies with you.
A
atwhatcost
Guest
Not a problem. You can have no part in people who deny mental problems. No one on here has. (Had you truly been listening, you would have recognized quite a few of us have mental problems. We're not hiding.)
As for who you will follow? You might want to find out who all of God is. He's really not just a rainbow and puppy dogs God. He likes rainbows, and puppy dogs, (after all, he created both, so really likes them lol) but he's much more powerful than you give him credit for.
Burden people? Really? You don't think God burdens? Why would Jesus tell us our yoke is light, if we're not burdened? No one needs any yoke, if they're not prepared to carry burdens.
If you follow just the kind god, it's a false god. The real God wasn't kind to Cain, Esau, Pharaoh, 3000+ people who created a gold calf to worship the true God, committed genocide for quite a few nations, intended to do the same thing for more, Saul, Goliath, Judas, and quite a few others. As for loving? He out-and-out said, "Esau I hated."
He loves with a fierce love. He hates with a fierce hate.
A
atwhatcost
Guest
Yay! You heard half of what I'm saying. Now go hear the other half! The part God wants from us.
S
Sirk
Guest
_______________________________________
I'm still looking for someone to post the command/verse that says "love yourself".
Ok, let's put it this way, ..Do you honestly love your neighbor as much as you already love yourself?
Those that hate themselves spend just as much time belittling themselves as the one who stares in the mirror smiling at themselves.
____________________________________
Thanks for your OPINION. God's Word still stands. Two Commands...Love God/Love your neighbor.
___________________________________
Lol..agreed cross note! Also brother...lol...where is that bible verse that says...Thou shalt walk into a room...and brag upon thyself so much...that thy neighbor will want to hide to escape thou vanity. Lol
_________________________________
So it sounds like the order of loving is...
1. Jesus
2. Yourself
3. Others
...???
Were you just clarifying here?
_______________________________
Yeah a lot of these could have been nicer.
i think many here are missing the point of the thread. Let me ask you something, how can you love others if all you ever do is hate yourself. Do you know how many times a day I loath myself, how many times a day I tell myself I'm scum how I am not a good person how I am unworthy- think of any kind of negative thought or feeling of yourself and that's what I call myself. True I fight severe depression it's a medical condition but that still doesn't mean I have to think this about myself its not excuse.
I always think this always say this about myself when in my heart I hear God saying the opposite, I find it hard to be able to love others when i am so focused on hating myself. When I hear God speaking to me telling me the opposite of what I say and think of myself I kind of figure he wants me to believe him. Take this for example how many scriptures has God said wonderful things about us how much he loves and cares for us who we are to him not who we are to others or even ourselves, now compared to that how many scriptures do you know of God hating us of God saying bad things about us now take that and think of how many scriptures the devil says the things to and about us that we are thinking to ourselves.
There is a huge difference between loving one self in an un Godly way and loving one self because of God. If we are seriously debating the difference in one of the best threads I have seen online in a long time then maybe we ourselves do not know the difference. You know I have for such a long time said to myself I am unworthy I am a filthy sinner ect. but lately I have read so many scriptures of God saying I am made clean by his blood I am a saint I am worthy I am his child. Can I say I am not a sinner? can I say I am actually clean? personally I can never say i am clean in my own eyes and I am obviously a sinner or I wouldn't need his help but is that who I am? So now everytime I hear myself calling myself a sinner in a non humble way something doesn't feel right. Just last night I saw a movie of an exorcism and I heard the exorcist beg for God's help because he is an ( unworthy servant) and something didn't feel right inside me as if something inside me was saying is that what God says about you?
Interesting how someone like me with such a severe depression issue is thinking like this, if anything i should be thinking of darker things about myself. Also it is no secret I don't think myself a good person yet so many of you try to lift my spirits you tell me I am a good and beautiful person how I am loving and caring- did you want me to believe you? If I believed these things so many of you say about me then I would love myself because if I hated myself I cannot possibly believe you. remeber who is the accuser the condemner and who is the one who is constantly trying to convince you who you are to him
I always think this always say this about myself when in my heart I hear God saying the opposite, I find it hard to be able to love others when i am so focused on hating myself. When I hear God speaking to me telling me the opposite of what I say and think of myself I kind of figure he wants me to believe him. Take this for example how many scriptures has God said wonderful things about us how much he loves and cares for us who we are to him not who we are to others or even ourselves, now compared to that how many scriptures do you know of God hating us of God saying bad things about us now take that and think of how many scriptures the devil says the things to and about us that we are thinking to ourselves.
There is a huge difference between loving one self in an un Godly way and loving one self because of God. If we are seriously debating the difference in one of the best threads I have seen online in a long time then maybe we ourselves do not know the difference. You know I have for such a long time said to myself I am unworthy I am a filthy sinner ect. but lately I have read so many scriptures of God saying I am made clean by his blood I am a saint I am worthy I am his child. Can I say I am not a sinner? can I say I am actually clean? personally I can never say i am clean in my own eyes and I am obviously a sinner or I wouldn't need his help but is that who I am? So now everytime I hear myself calling myself a sinner in a non humble way something doesn't feel right. Just last night I saw a movie of an exorcism and I heard the exorcist beg for God's help because he is an ( unworthy servant) and something didn't feel right inside me as if something inside me was saying is that what God says about you?
Interesting how someone like me with such a severe depression issue is thinking like this, if anything i should be thinking of darker things about myself. Also it is no secret I don't think myself a good person yet so many of you try to lift my spirits you tell me I am a good and beautiful person how I am loving and caring- did you want me to believe you? If I believed these things so many of you say about me then I would love myself because if I hated myself I cannot possibly believe you. remeber who is the accuser the condemner and who is the one who is constantly trying to convince you who you are to him
R
Rhythm801
Guest
The math problem is maybe taking to much for granted too? Like she says maybe you don't know her that well. She maybe feels like you condesending to her? I did read what atwhatcost said and know that maybe you felt a little singled out or something, but I like what both you had to say all the same.
Have a little thicker skin than that. We all think that we will solve the other persons problems or something. What if we were to meet sometime? Maybe that is inherent on the internet too? We say what we want and nobody really can identify us or get even with us too? JFsurvivor I hope you don't have a chip on your shoulder either.
I like what you both have to say! I am the newbie too! lol
Have a little thicker skin than that. We all think that we will solve the other persons problems or something. What if we were to meet sometime? Maybe that is inherent on the internet too? We say what we want and nobody really can identify us or get even with us too? JFsurvivor I hope you don't have a chip on your shoulder either.
I like what you both have to say! I am the newbie too! lol
There's a lot to love! *hug*
You are made by the holiest of holies, by the highest of highs. You are so dearly loved. You have so much to offer.
R
Rhythm801
Guest
I wonder how it is that you are the senior member here and just 20 yrs old . I am the just the junior member and I am 59 years old? lol You must have more pull than me for sure ! lol I think to love yourself is a hard thing sometimes too. My parents used to tell me to quit having the pitty party too.
When we start to measure our love for ourselves first of all maybe we have failed ourselves too. Does that make us a failure then? If you lost a Job ? Maybe slander came to play in the loss of job too? So maybe sometimes it's when others fail us that we become a failure and then we fail to love ourselves too. ? I have lost jobs because of slander too. So don't think I talk about you either JFsurvivor. I think you have a great atttitude and really positive made me think too. Jim
V
Viligant_Warrior
Guest
Jesus said to "love your neighbor as yourself." Did He speak an oxymoron, or is He saying that you can love yourself, if you first love God?
S
Sirk
Guest
ok, ic this one was directed my way.
Where did I walk into a room and brag on myself? Apart from Christ, there is nothing worthy to speak of. If God sees any worth in me, it's only on account of Christ...so I have NOTHING in me to love or glory in.
So God didn't give you any gifts? He made you a worthless slobbering meat sack with NO redeeming qualities? God the great creator, decided to make you his worst creation yet?
(1) I see only one thing to do at the moment. Your patient has become humble; have you drawn his attention to the fact? All virtues are less formidable to us once the man is aware that he has them, but this is especially true of humility. Catch him at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, “By jove! I’m being humble”, and almost immediately pride—pride at his own humility—will appear. If he awakes to the danger and tries to smother this new form of pride, make him proud of his attempt—and so on, through as many stages as you please. But don’t try this too long, for fear you awake his sense of humor and proportion, in which case he will merely laugh at you and go to bed.
But there are other profitable ways of fixing his attention on the virtue of Humility. By this virtue, as by all the others, our Enemy wants to turn the man’s attention away from self to Him, and to the man’s neighbors. All the abjection and self-hatred are designed, in the long run, solely for this end; unless they attain this end they do us little harm; and they may even do us good if they keep the man concerned with himself, and, above all, if self-contempt can be made the starting-point for contempt of other selves, and thus for gloom, cynicism, and cruelty.
(2) You must therefore conceal from the patient the true end of Humility. Let him think of it not as self- forgetfulness but as a certain kind of opinion (namely, a low opinion) of his own talents and character. Some talents, I gather, he really has. Fix in his mind the idea that humility consists in trying to believe those talents to be less valuable than he believes them to be. No doubt they are in fact less valuable than he believes, but that is not the point. The great thing is to make him value an opinion for some quality other than truth, thus introducing an element of dishonesty and make-believe into the heart of what otherwise threatens to become a virtue. By this method thousands of humans have been brought to think that humility means pretty women trying to believe they are ugly and clever men trying to believe they are fools. And since what they are trying to believe may, in some cases, be manifest nonsense, they cannot succeed in believing it and we have the chance of keeping their minds endlessly revolving on themselves in an effort to achieve the impossible. To anticipate the Enemy’s strategy, we must consider His aims. The Enemy wants to bring the man to a state of mind in which he could design the best cathedral in the world, and know it to be the best, and rejoice in the, fact, without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another. The Enemy wants him, in the end, to be so free from any bias in his own favor that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor’s talents—or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall. He wants each man, in the long run, to be able to recognize all creatures (even himself) as glorious and excellent things. He wants to kill their animal self-love as soon as possible; but it is His long- term policy, I fear, to restore to them a new kind of self-love—a charity and gratitude for all selves, including their own; when they have really learned to love their neighbors as themselves, they will be allowed to love themselves as their neighbors. For we must never forget what is the most repellent and inexplicable trait in our Enemy; He really loves the hairless bipeds He has created and always gives back to them with His right hand what He has taken away with His left.
(3) His whole effort, therefore, will be to get the man’s mind off the subject of his own value altogether. He would rather the man thought himself a great architect or a great poet and then forgot about it, than that he should spend much time and pains trying to think himself a bad one. Your efforts to instill either vainglory or false modesty into the patient will therefore be met from the Enemy’s side with the obvious reminder that a man is not usually called upon to have an opinion of his own talents at all, since he can very well go on improving them to the best of his ability without deciding on his own precise niche in the temple of Fame.
(4) You must try to exclude this reminder from the patient’s consciousness at all costs. The Enemy will also try to render real in the patient’s mind a doctrine which they all profess but find it difficult to bring home to their feelings—the doctrine that they did not create themselves, that their talents were given them, and that they might as well be proud of the color of their hair. But always and by all methods the Enemy’s aim will be to get the patient’s mind off such questions, and yours will be to fix it on them. Even of his sins the Enemy does not want him to think too much: once they are repented, the sooner the man turns his attention outward, the better the Enemy is pleased,
Your affectionate uncle SCREWTAPE
So this is from the Screwtape letters by C.S. Lewis. There is no real order to my color-coding. I just made it colorful so you wouldn't get tired of blue. What do you think of this?
S
Sirk
Guest
JF,
I don't think Crossnote was trying to depreciate the value of what God has done in his life.
I think he was very appropriately trying to take attention off himself and direct it to Jesus.
Crossnote does not impress me as a person with low self esteem.
Rather he wants to give Jesus rather than himself credit for the qualities many of us find admirable in him.
I really enjoy C. S. Lewis; and the Screwtape Letters could under proper circumstances almost be read as sermons.
It would be helpful if you would use a larger font and more white space on longer posts.
You pretend to understand Jack's writings, you should be able to understand mine.
The truth you don't seem to grasp is "on account of Christ ".
So it is on account of Christ, God has gifted us, forgiven us, accepts us, calls us His children etc.. I can’t make it much plainer than that.
Last edited:
O
oldthennew
Guest
=======================================
Yes, Paul does say that nothing good dwells in this flesh --- BUT, Paul delights in the inward man
where our Holy Father has written His word....
cross,
we would like you to re-think what you think our Father must think of you...
if there wasn't something totally special and unique about you, then, for heaven's sake
why would the King of the Universe give you a second thought??
Cross, there is an original 'blue-print' which is not faulty through God's creation,
but through sin.
as it is written;
He has redeemed us from the transgression under the first Covenant - and again,
Behold, a new man with Jesus Christ living in him.
remember, your body is NOT your own, our Father's expectations of you belong only to you alone -
they are yours, no one can steal them, it's kind of like He gave each of us our own dna which makes us
completely unique - I think He knows what He doing, do you?
I don't think he is trying to either. I think C.S. Lewis is great to use here because he clearly outlines what it actually means to be falsely humble He also explains what it means to be truly humble and that includes recognizing your abilities and yes, loving yourself. He outlines that there is a difference between "animal self-love" and the godly kind of self-love.
I could make guesses to Crossnote's self esteem but I would either be totally wrong or he would deny it. I have a thing where I can "read people" I don't know how well it works via internet though. It's not magic or anything,...all psychology.
Anywho's sorry about the tiny font. I'll use a bigger font next time.