
“As Yourself”
Once again, we find ourselves in an election year with vitriol flying from all directions like a messy food fight. I don’t know about you, but it’s my intention to rise above the sarcasm, hatred, and venomous words. Therefore, to help you and me, this writing focuses on God’s two greatest commandments.
Today, most believers would confess our limited understanding, seriousness, and obedience to God’s two greatest commandments.
Amid another test question by one of the Pharisees, this one, an expert in the law, Jesus is asked, “Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?” (Matt 22:36). Jesus answers him and then adds more, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. The second is like it, Love your neighbor as yourself. All the law and the prophets depend on these two commandments” (Matt 22:37-40). The Pharisee feeling skilled in his rhetoric enough to see just how much Jesus knew, attempts to stir up an argument with Jesus.
Later, however, in the Mark 12:28-34 accounting, we see Jesus pleased with the follow up response of the Pharisee lawyer. Jesus not only considers him as having “answered thoughtfully,” (Mark 12:34) but comments to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” (Mark 12:34). The different accountings show that Jesus’ statements either silenced the Pharisees or drew them closer to him. It’s hard to argue against love!
A lesson we can apply to our own lives from both passages. Is our motive to create an argument when we speak with others? To stump them or prove them wrong? Or is our intention to understand another’s position? That we might come to similar or even like agreement?
In Matthew 7:12 we have the Golden Rule, “In everything, treat others as you would want them to treat you, for this fulfills the law and the prophets.” How we conduct ourselves serves to fulfill the aim of the law and the prophets. Loving God, however, is an internal response. We can’t physically show our love for an intangible God, but we can to those he created. Jesus asks for us to touch the lives of others as a personal witness of our overwhelming love for him.
Jesus presents within these two greatest commandments their immense significance. He has unfolded his scroll before us, and it depends on these two purposes: “that he be loved with all our heart, and that we love each other as we love ourselves.” Jesus declares the whole Word of God, including the New Testament and the law and prophets, depend on these two commandments.
The very heart of God and his purpose for our lives finds its deepest significance within these two commandments.
When we read, “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matt 22:39), our curiosity is piqued when we reach the words “as yourself.” Unsure of how to interpret them properly, we might even bring the secular world into our faith and define “as yourself” to reference a “self-love.”
To unravel the curious words “as yourself,” we must understand that our self-love is an ingrained part of our humanity. Initially, our self-love sought after all that God declared as good, our needs and desire to walk with God, until the Fall. Now we see our self-love entrenched in our pride. We focus our lives on what we desire to meet our needs.
How, then, can we understand the idea of loving someone else as we love ourselves? Does this mean we should love others like we selfishly love our own lives?
First, we must realize the two commandments are intertwined; they respond one to another, each brings clarification to the other. The first commandment instructs us to make all of our heart, soul, and mind filled or to the maximum with the pursuit of God. All those self-pursuits feed our self-love. That is why we transfer our attention to God to satisfy our desires. This is how God transforms our self-love. In Christ, our inborn self-seeking becomes transformed. “For those who live according to the flesh have their outlook shaped by the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit have their outlook shaped by the things of the Spirit” (Romans 8:5). God commands that our transformed love for him and our own lives then gets extended to our neighbor.
The words to a popular Christian song in the 70s went like this: “And they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love. Yes, they’ll know we are Christians by our love.” Not by our ability to argue our point. Not by our screaming what the Bible teaches. Certainly, not by our political views. But, by our love!
We are in desperate need to learn to love ourselves from a Christ perspective; any other means leaves the world, and us in it empty. When we capture and live in this understanding, we are not just “ready” to love others we become eager to love our neighbor without a sense of burden. With all our new, God-enriched, “heart, soul, and mind” we then desire to infect others with our also new, God-transformed, self-love!

