In the Word eVotion                        March 9, 2010

Who Do You Love?
By Pastor Jason Van Divier

“For men will be lovers of themselves…”
                                                         2 Timothy 3:2 (NKJV)

A lot of time and money has been spent teaching people to love themselves. Many psychologist believe this is the key to being a healthy person. The idea is if we can just love ourselves, then we will be better equipped to love others and address the challenges of life. However, this is not really born out in reality. The more we love ourselves, well, the more we just love ourselves.

Here, we see that love of self is a symptom of men in the last days. It is one of the characteristics that makes these days more perilous spiritually. The Word of God tells us how to be healthy spiritually, emotionally and physically. When asked by a lawyer about the greatest commandment in Matthew 22:35-40, Jesus responded that the greatest commandment was to love God completely first, and that there was a second closely related commandment, which is to love others as ourselves. Jesus revealed that most already love themselves just fine. The key is loving God more and first and then others as ourselves. So our focus really needs to be less about loving ourselves and more about being lovers of God and others.