You know you hear a lot about self-confidence, and we talk a lot about it here because that’s a buzzword that people think that’s the catchall for, you know, feeling good about who you are.

But when I was studying self-confidence in the Bible, I kept coming back to love, and in the New Testament, there are two primary commandments; the 1st is about loving God with your mind, your body, and your soul, and in the other one. It is to love others as much as you love yourself, and a lot of times, we talk about loving other people, but we don’t.

Get down to the nitty-gritty or what I think is the nitty-gritty of that commandment that God talks to us about. He says that we have to love others as much as we love ourselves.

And so, a lot of times, it’s in the church community or even in the world. It’s like, well, you know, if you love yourself that you or arrogant, or you’re selfish, or you know you shouldn’t be that way. That’s not the proper way to be. You get a lot of shame from it, and there is balance. Don’t get me wrong; we can get too far into just putting our needs above everything else and not considering anybody else and not coming to an understanding of that when you have.

Ship with other people. There are certain things that there’s a given a take, but primarily if you’re not taking care of yourself.

You are not taking great care of other people, regardless of if you’re selfless or not.

And so I want to talk about that right now talking about, you know, treating people.

Typically we treat people that we supposedly don’t care for and that aren’t our family, friends, or loved ones better than we treat our loved ones. That’s an interesting concept because excellence is supposed to come from the inside out and those that are closer in your circle.

Should get the majority of the love the most significant benefit of the love and from them getting the greater benefit of your love. They’re able to utilize that love and.

Give out more love to their circle, so it’s kind of like an explosion is a blast radius. You know those that are closer to where the bomb was detonated. There’s most of where the damage is, and in this situation, they’ll be most of where the love, compassion, understanding, and care should be. Many times that’s not the case. We give so much outside of our family outside of ourselves outside of our inner circles to people that are around us.

Yes, when we come home, when we are finished with our day’s work, we are so exhausted, and we don’t have anything to give to those people or children or family or loved ones or friends. And most importantly to ourselves, because we can’t continue to give out to other people if we are empty. If our needs are not met. If we don’t know who we are or haven’t done the things that we need to do for ourselves, giving out to other people is basically.

Vein, as far as I’m concerned, it’s fake. It’s like this thing that I found out about, like McDonald’s, that the cup sizes are all exactly the same. It’s not real; it’s an illusion. You know you’re not really giving the best part of yourself. You’re not utilizing the best part of yourself because you are empty.

And so.

The first person that you’re supposed to love outside of God is you.

You know we’re taught. As I said, we’re taught that loving other people you know is really important, and it is. I’m not saying that it’s not.

But we’re really not taught about self-love because if we have an awareness and an understanding about loving ourselves.

Then they’ll be disciplined. They’ll be happy. They’ll be goal attainment. They’ll be rest and relaxation.

You know there’ll be so many things because we know that we have to take care of ourselves, start to enjoy, and start to feel the wonderful ecstatic.

Calm, patient, joyful, serenity elation, amazing health and mind-body effect. Our spirits will get the opportunity to lead because we are living holistically, loving ourselves from the inside, out, understanding ourselves from the inside out. When we understand ourselves, we’re better able to understand others. When we love ourselves, we’re better able to love others. We have compassion with ourselves. We’re better able to have compassion with others when we understand that how we think in the belief systems that we have, we are better able to understand how others think.

In a belief system they have, I’m Not saying that one is wrong or one is right.

But just being able to understand and have empathy and have compassion and a true connection with other people.

Because we haven’t taken a time to love ourselves because we’re spending all of our time focused on everybody else and what they’re doing.

And everybody gets caught up in this to 1 degree or another.

We have to interact with other people, but we have to make a conscious effort to understand.

That we have to always love ourselves first.

And one of the cool things about this love that God is talking about. He’s saying it’s an action. It’s a verb.

You’re doing something. You’re achieving something. There’s movement and development, and you’re growing. And so this love means to welcome it means, entertain, be fonder, be well pleased with, and be contented with.

So if you’re welcoming yourself and you’re able to entertain yourself, you don’t need anybody outside of yourself to be excited and to have entertainment and relaxation and rest and fun.

And we’re fond of ourselves we think kindly of ourselves we encourage ourselves.

And we’re well pleased with who we are and what we do, how we think, and how we move in the world. And truly contented with ourselves.

We’re good with who we are. We understand that we can grow and that love is a movement. It is a growing thing that they’re supposed to live, and it’s not supposed to be static. It’s supposed to increase and develop.

But right now, right today I’m good with who I am.

And so loving ourselves as we love others.

Loving others as we love ourselves is what the word says.

But I like to say it backward because we often don’t realize that we’re not loving ourselves. We’re spending so much time loving everybody else.

And one of the cool things about being a Christian is that God so loved the world that he gave Jesus.

For everyone to have everlasting life. And so we see that at sports events where people will have that sign up, it says John. 3:16 , and that’s kind of, you know, like the decor in the background, and we kind of wash over that. But Can you imagine?

Loving someone so much.

That you sacrifice and give away your only son.

And that only sooner that only child willingly giving his life for you.

I can’t contemplate that I currently have any children, but I have a nice nephew.

And I can’t even imagine that being an option for anything would never give their lives either one of their lives for anything or anyone.

There’s always in my mind, another way to do this.

But God was like no, there’s only one way to get this done.

And I love everybody so much.

And the thing about that, if you sit and meditate on that, he loves each and every one of us so much that he created us, and that he gave us a plan in a future and a purpose. He gave us gifts and skills and talents.

Just understanding that just on the mere fuel on the mere fact.

That he loved us that much.

That he gave his best for us.

How valuable we are.

Individually.

How fearfully and wonderfully were made honorably.

With compassion and grace and love and intention.

And wonderfully made.

A spectacular intricate masterpiece.

How could you not love yourself?

How could you not understand that?

He gave his best for you. He set up a life and a purpose, gave you gifts and talents and skills and abilities and opportunity, and gave you a blessing. Understanding how that you can have whatever it is that you want in this world.

And he created you fearfully and wonderfully.

Another one of the benefits of being loved by God.

Is he made us more than conquerors?

Now I don’t know if you know what the word conqueror means, but it means a winner, a champion.

1st place my second.

Meaning that you are excellent.

That you’re top-notch.

That your stellar that you are an athlete. Using that example you have worked. You have developed yourself. I mean he sees you as a champion. He said you’re more than conquerors and anything in life because of his love for you.

And even digging deeper toward more greater than in excess extra additional.

So I’m a greater than an access winner, a champion.

Exceedingly abundantly above anything that I can ask or think according to the power that’s active in me.

Understanding who I am loving, who I am being content with. Who I am walking in the skills and the purpose and the passion into talents. Being content right there, growing and developing, being who I was created to be doing what I was created to do.

And not just grinding and not just hustling and not just getting out there and toiling, but living and loving.

Experiencing.

Great understanding of who you are.

God loves us so much.

And he says.

To love your neighbor as you love yourself.

My challenge to you.

Is consider.

Pulling back on loving people so much.

And spend some time.

Thinking about doing some things to love yourself.

Actually loving yourself.

And by doing that by actually loving yourself, your blast radius.

Will reach further because in loving yourself, you change your mindset.

You go from a poverty mindset to an abundance mi