The Three Great Commandments Part I: Loving Yourself in the Light of Eternity

When God walked on the earth as a Man—which is a historical reality—He taught us, He loved us, He prayed for us and He healed us. He knows our nature more than anyone or anything. And, perhaps it is because we can make things so complicated, and needed to hear what we needed to do in the simplest of terms, that He gave us “the two greatest commandments.” The first commandment is to love God with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul and all our strength. And the second commandment is to love our neighbor as our self.  For the purposes of my own understanding, I often think of these as three commandments. Why? Because in order to love my neighbor as myself, I first need to love myself. And in order to love myself, I first need to understand how to love myself, in the right way.

The first commandment comes with an explanation of sorts: with all our heart, mind, soul and strength. And the last part, to love our neighbor, also comes with some explanation “as we love ourselves.” It is for us to try and apply these, and in doing so, we can also come to understand the whole equation more deeply. In other words, it’s not enough to intellectually have some understanding, but in order to truly come to an understanding we need to apply the commandments in our lives.

But how can we do that if we don’t know how to? I hope this article will help with that.

I think fundamentally the most important starting place is to understand that these commandments are given in a certain order. The order is Love God (with your whole being), love your self (in the right way) and love your neighbor (as you love your self.) Ironically, to attempt to fulfill these commandments in the wrong order, is to lose the whole essence of what we are trying to accomplish.

For example, If I love myself first, my neighbor second and God last, I don’t really have a starting place. How would I know how to love myself? What would be my reference point? If I loved myself before I loved God, what would that look like? Would I get up every morning and admire myself in the mirror? Would I make sure I have the best wardrobe, the biggest piece of pie, the nicest home? Would I make sure that in every relationship it’s all about me first? Clearly, this is not going to work out well.

If I loved my neighbor first, what would that look like? Would I get pulled into every drama happening around me? Would I bend over backwards to make sure that everyone else’s needs are taken care of instead of my basic ones, and end up sick, drained and tired? Would I go knocking on doors, uninvited, and try to persuade people to think as I do, because I think I am pulling them out of hell by doing so? Would I always wonder why I care so much about people, and I can clearly see how things could be better for them, only to find time and time again that my sincere efforts at reaching out a hand are not welcomed? Would I get involved in every campaign to "help the underprivileged and misunderstood" while not paying any attention to whether or not I am acting in a godly manner? Clearly, as well intentioned as these different approaches may be, they don't really accomplish what we need to either.

Actually, both of these approaches keep our minds and hearts in the earthly plane. And keep them distracted, and focused in the wrong direction. So we can’t build on that. Sometimes, in declaring a lot about "love towards our neighbor", we are hating the neighbor on the other side of us.  Ironically, that's what can happen when we think we are following "the rule of compassion", but we haven't built the platform to even understand what that looks like. 

What happens if we put the commandments back in the order in which they were given? What does that look like?

First, what if I strive to love God with my whole being? That helps me to understand how to handle so many questions that come up in my life. It is my North Star. It also means I recognize that there is a Giver behind the message of compassion, so I don't get to, or have to, interpret it any way I want. Then I seek to love myself, the right way, and then I know how to love my neighbor, the right way. Basically, by putting things in this order we can build a foundation, and on that foundation, we can build everything else.

To strive to love God with our whole being, is a big topic, and one we hope to write about on other days. (Because, after all, how can we love God with our whole being if we are not even sure if we love Him at all? If we don’t even know Him? If we sometimes question His existence?)

Today I would like to look at what does it mean to love our selves in a right way.  To love our selves in the light of eternity. And hopefully this will be helpful for someone. 

What we need to start with is for each person to know this basic and true reality in the depths of their hearts, which is, that you are precious. Since that might sound trite and cliche and very overused these days, we have to put it in the right context. Do we mean you are precious because you have won awards, are clever, have certain type of hair or nose, have overcome great difficulties, are rich, are poor, have many gifts, have few gifts but work hard at them? These are all attributes, these are…. details in this existence, and some of them can be important. But right now, what we mean is that you are precious because YOU are a soul, and you live in a body. You are not just a body that has a soul. (Again, its that order thing that can make a world of difference.) YOU are immortal. Think about that. I am...immortal. Death is not the end of me. I am an immortal soul. And that’s what makes you precious. What could be more precious than something that is immortal? IMMORTAL. DOES NOT DIE. NEVER ENDS. Not everything on this planet is immortal, clearly we as humans are in a special category. You have been given a great treasure, and a great responsibility, and a great opportunity, and all of that has to do with the fact that you have one soul, unique to you, living in one body, and one life in which to accomplish what you need to. And that makes you very, very precious. And that makes your life very, very important. And that makes your choices very, very significant. Because you have the unique ability to even make significant choices. 

As a little side note, many people think they are their brain. They think their brain is them. Lately neuroscience has come to understand what Eastern Christianity has always taught about the spiritual life, that the brain is an organ, with certain jobs. And that the real YOU either “guards the mind” or doesn’t. In other words, there is a you independent of the brain. Anyone who wants to observe this about themselves can easily do so. This can be a real paradigm shift. (And a big help towards not being controlled by our thoughts.) 

For now let's try and make this one shift: Please start thinking of yourself in terms of “I am a precious immortal soul.” 

To be continued in The Three Great Commandments part II....