Love Yourself!

Ephesians 5:33 NAS, "Nevertheless, each individual among you also is to love his own wife even as himself, and the wife must see to it that she respects her husband."

Yes, I realize this Scripture is a marriage reference. No, I'm not married anymore. I'm so far away from marriage it's not even funny. LOL However, during my Scripture reading this verse jumped out at me.

When I was married, I did a study called "Love and Respect". It is very true that women want love and men want respect. It's probably the way God wired us.

What really jumped out at me today was the part about loving oneself.

EVERY time we are done with Zumba, Reggie, our instructor, makes us hug ourselves. And he says, "Love yo self, love yo self, love yo self." We go to Zumba to exercise, but we should be doing it for the right reasons. One of which is loving ourselves. The other is to get healthy. 

For years, I didn't love myself. 

How can we expect someone else to love us, if we don't love ourselves?

God made us the way we are... our personalities, skills, talents and traits, as well as our outward appearance. Some of those things we can control. For example, being too skinny or over weight is on us. How we cut and style our hair is our choice. Wearing glasses or contacts, yet again, up to us.

Loving who we are isn't just about how we look.

God loves us all unconditionally. Nothing we can do will make Him love us less, just like nothing we can do will make Him love us more. God's love is amazing like that. 

We need to tap into that in our own hearts and love ourselves. 

I am convinced that if we loved ourselves, then we would love others correctly... Therefore, divorce wouldn't happen so much.

I see where I probably added to how my ex husband felt at times. If I didn't love me, why did I think he could? I mean, he should have anyway, you get the picture? Confidence in who you are and knowing that you are fully loved by the Creator of the Universe should move your heart.

Do you love yourself? You should. God made you. And He loves you more than any human being on this planet ever could.

God bless you today and always.

*** If you are reading from over seas, please be sure to check out my devotional book on Amazon as a Kindle download. Just search for Java with Jill on Amazon. Thanks for reading my blog. I sincerely hope you are learning and growing closer to God.***