Love.
It is an amazing feeling, is it not?
To be embraced by your mother or father, and know that they love you, not because you have anything to offer them, but they love you because you are from them, part of them, theirs.
The love that God has for me allows me to love myself on the mere fact that God thought I was worth it to let His one and only Son die for me. In my wicked, awful place. If I am worth that much to God, I should feel like I am loved by my self as well.
The love that God has for me allows me to love others because I am a Christ Follower. I am traveling the journey of my life in Christ's footsteps, and therefore am called to a life that imitates Christ's life. And He loved anyone and everyone. 1 John says, "But if we love one another, God dwells deeply within us, and His love becomes complete in us - perfect love!"
The love that God has for me allows me to love Him. God is love, and in Him everything is love. He loves me, not because I have done anything to earn that love or deserve it or that I have anything to offer Him in return, but because I am from Him, part of Him, His.
This is connected to what Bernard of Clairvaux believes in his Four Degrees of Love through the development of my own love for Him, which then extends to the love I have for myself and reaches out to loving my neighbors. Which then, reminds me of His love and makes me love Him even more.
Love - "does not seek its own interests".
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