Good Afternoon my siblings in Christ. I pray you all have been spending your time living intentionally and with purpose. This past week Yeshua has been revealing to me my placement. He’s showing me my roles while providing an understanding of the depths of those roles. I have so many areas that I desire to share with you all, and I will over time. Today, I wanted to touch on unconditional love and it’s placement in my life.
Unconditional love is defined as affection without any limitations, or love without conditions. Biblically, unconditional love is referenced as Agape. I don’t believe I actually understood what unconditional love was until recently. All credit be to Yeshua for my new found understanding. Unconditional love has always been associated with how God loves us, marriage, or being a parent. The idea of having someone love me unconditionally seemed like a fantasy for most of my life. The last several months my relationship with Yeshua has grown and has put somethings into perspective for me.
First, I became aware that I had never loved myself unconditionally. My love for myself was cultivated in wrong thinking, lies, sexual immorality, and self-condemnation. My parents were young when I was born. My grandparents raised me most of my youth and spent a lot of time emphasizing that they were the only ones who loved me. I was a prisoner of my past and that prevented me from seeing the beauty in which God made me. It never even crossed my mind that I had no idea what it meant to love me unconditionally. I had such a distorted vision of love. Especially self-love. I was never taught how to love myself. I was never exposed to an environment that displayed unconditional love. Everything that I had become prior to the discovery of who I was in Christ was rooted in pain.
Second, I became aware that my ability to love myself wasn’t validated through a relationship or activity. I spent the majority of my life searching for validation. I wanted someone or something to love me through my flaws and all. Something that I didn’t think I was capable of doing for myself. When we do that we allow other people or things to dictate our worth. When I didn’t do something that someone liked or I made a bad decision in relationships I adopted their distaste for me and allowed it to become a self-reflection. By doing this I started to form a level of self-hate, and unforgiveness for me. God calls us to see ourselves how he sees us. When we are obedient to His word then He will begin taking the blinders off of us. He will set the standard by which we conduct ourselves, and how we allow people to treat us. He has truly shown me what it means to love my flaws and all. He has shown me that in my position of self-love, and self-forgiveness no one gets to take away from it. He has given me the right to move past my past, and grow as a new creature in Christ. One who knows what it means to love herself, forgive herself, see the beauty in herself, and one who has created the standard in which she is treated. Selah!
Third, I became aware that now I must live my life intentionally, and with purpose. Now that all of these things have been revealed to me I have become intentional about my life. For me being intentional means taking a step back to realize what’s in front of me, praying about my next move, and following the direction of God. I’m not leaning on my own understanding to handle life. I pray for wisdom and guidance continually. In doing so, I am ensuring that I’m under the protection and guidance of the Lord. He gives me clarity and understanding that I wouldn’t have if I were making decisions on my own. When I’m faced with challenging moments He graces me to handle those moments and walks me through the flames without being harmed. I love myself in such a way now that I’ve given my life to Christ it’s not explainable. My past may come up from time to time. I acknowledge it without guilt or fear. I know what my past looks like, and I’m still worthy through it all.
Psalm 139:14-18 (NLT)
14 Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
15 You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
16 You saw me before I was born.
Every day of my life was recorded in your book.
Every moment was laid out
before a single day had passed.
17 How precious are your thoughts about me,[a] O God.
They cannot be numbered!
18 I can’t even count them;
they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when I wake up,
you are still with me!
Today, I want you to take a step back and acknowledge the level at which you love yourself. Is it unconditional? Do you allow others to validate how you love you? Do you allow others to dictate the point at which you forgive yourself? Has your life shaped your understanding of you? If you’ve answered yes to any of this questions I challenge you to disconnect yourself from the beliefs that are false and plug into God. He will transform you and guide you as you are on your journey to loving yourself unconditionally. Blessings.
Mindful of Me 