Recognize the enemy attacks on battlefield of our minds
In Mark 12: 30-31 (NIV), scripture calls us to, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these.”
But what if you didn’t love yourself? What would that look like? Would you have a close and active relationship with your neighbor? If you’re not good to yourself, how will your neighbors feel if you treat them the same way? How often do you think you would be invited over for dinner? They might want to put up a privacy fence or a For Sale sign in their front yard.
It is important that before we can love our neighbor, we must first love ourselves.
After all, according to Genesis, we are created in God’s image. In Genesis 1:27 (NIV) we read, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
The battle against your negative inner voice
One important part of being created in God’s image is we should take on the characteristics of God. We should show the fruit of the Spirit to our neighbor, but there are many things that prevent that from happening. Psychologist, Eugene Sagan, coined the term “the pathological critic.” This term describes the negative inner voice that attacks and judges you. This voice blames you for things that go wrong and compares you to others whom you believe have greater achievements and abilities. This creates feelings of inadequacy that prevent us from loving our neighbor, because we do not love ourselves.
Paul wrote in Ephesians 1:4-7 (NIV), “For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will – to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace.”
This is irrefutable evidence God loves us and considers us his children, because we have been redeemed and forgiven through the blood of Jesus.
We should embrace how God felt about Jesus when he said in Matthew 3:17 (NIV), “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” Because we are joint heirs with Jesus, we need to realize God is well pleased with us, as well. If we recognize the enemy attacks us on the battlefield of our minds, then we can embrace the truth about who we are and what we are to God. If we do, then we can more easily, “Love our neighbor as our self.”
Tom Russell, LPCCS, is the president of Heritage Christian Counseling Ministries.
This article originally appeared on Ashland Times Gazette: Column: Fight the battle against the negative inner voice
