love thy neighbor as thyself?

[Shmanu YAH]

shalom mishpacha, "ALL praises and glory to whom it truly belongs - YAHWAH" I pray all is getting better for you and yours. In this short communique' I'd like to look into something we often look over ..... loving ones self correctly. Merriam-Webster's has many definitions of the word love such as: 1 a (1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties and also 4 a : unselfish loyal and benevolent concern for the good of another: as (1) : the fatherly concern of Elohym for humankind. (2) : brotherly concern for others. In these definitions there in no mention of conceit or narcissism, thats not the direction I'm going. The word love in hebrew is "ahab" ( ah'-hab ; love ) and is something we truly need to understand before we claim it. In torah we are commanded to love: Leviticus. 19:18, Thou shalt not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people; but thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself: I am YAHWAH. and also Lev. 19:34, The stranger that sojourneth with you shall be unto you as the home-born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were sojourners in the land of Egypt: I am YAHWAH your Elohim. The gospels in: h'brit h'chadshah (the new testament) of the disciples as well as the epistles written by Paul are saturated with a recanting of this command. First we notice in the Ten Commandments we have been instructed to honor our parents but not commanded to love them because thats a "given" or a "no brainer" but we have been commanded love others because for some reason he knew that wasn't in us naturally anymore. When man was first created, love of others was never to be a issue but when sin entered in we saw a "change for the worst". Now before we run off trying to love others lets make sure we love ourselves! Ask yourself a simple question: Do you want people that dont love themselves and are terminally self-destructive to treat you like they treat themselves? Ha'shatan the professional hater has been hard at work since being tossed out the upper realms of heaven to destroy mankind anyway he possibly can, do you really think he dont know torah? In case you haven't noticed, that "liar from the beginning" has successfully beguiled as many as he can over the millenniums to hate themselves from the inside out. His wicked tactic is a simple one: If he can get people to not love themselves, they really cant love anyone else correctly! As we look around at ourselves, our families, friends, neighbors, co-workers, etc... we will surely notice the majority have trouble with REAL self acceptance and appreciation for reasons we haven't really diagnosed but throw out conventional terms like "peer pressure" or "low self esteem" or "stress related" etc. Here is another question you should ask yourself: If I don't truly love and respect myself why should anyone else? We have seen over the years the constant attack since childhood to everyone's self esteem like: you too ugly, you too fat, you too boney, you too stupid, you too short, you tall and goofy, you too weak, you too cowardly, you too poor, you untalented etc.... but wait! the etymology of the term self-esteem has always meant "SELF" esteem, to ESTEEM your SELF! How did we let the adversary tell us he or others have the power to remove our self appreciation? Whats with all the insecurites and fear? Lets read 1st John 4:18-19, There is no fear in love: but perfect love casteth out fear, because fear hath punishment; and he that feareth is not made perfect in love. 19 We love, because he first loved us., Now we have another serious issue, a "perfect love" has no room for fear or insecurities and since the most high first loved us what right do we have to not love us? (look like we have run out of excuses). In Galatians 5:14 again it is recorded, For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. If we wanted to we could go on for hours about what is love but whats being dealt with here is: Do you really love yourself like you should so that you can love others correctly?, I can only speak for myself when I say "If you are self destructive for ANY reason and dont treat yourself righteously and you don't really love yourself, please don't love me like that .... I can do without it!". Please family lets work on the true love the most high YAHWAH wants us to have ( like when he gave us Yahushua ) and the type of love Yahushua showed us by his sacrifice and lets "Love thy Neighbor" like that ..... selah, shalom