THE IMPORTANCE OF THE LOVE OF GOD

Love to God is very important to human beings. We may not know it, or we may not believe it, or we may even deny it, but it is. The main reason why love to God is so important is that He keeps us alive. Regardless of what we do, how self destructive we may be, He continues to give us life and love.

We have a place in the universe of His creation regardless of what we think about Him, regardless of what we feel about Him. The Lord never strikes back. He never takes revenge. He never punishes. He loved us from the first moment of our life and even before, and He will love us forever. So His love is important to us because it preserves our freedom. This is the most basic aspect and effect of the Lord's love. But there is more.

There is another love that is very important to us. That is our self love. We cannot exist, and we cannot be happy unless we love ourselves. How we feel about ourselves and about our existance is very important. Psychologists have recognized this. They say that the key to mental health is our feeling of self esteem.

Some religions have branded self love as evil, but this is not right. The Lord said:"Love your neighbor as yourself". To be good to another is impossible unless we love ourselves. To be good is to love another as much as ourselves. To be evil is to love ourselves MORE than others.

The Lord created the love of self into us from the beginning, and He sustains it every moment. Normally we do not think about this very much. We just live from moment to moment. But there will come moments or there already have been moments in our life that our selflove grows weaker.

We may have failed in life a number of times, or we may have been rejected by many people, and we may begin to doubt ourselves. We may begin to wonder if we are worth anything at all. Such thoughts can lead to a mental breakdown. Feelings of selfdoubt and rejection are devastating to the human mind. But if we realize that we were created by an all knowing God for a definite purpose, we have the seed of a comeback. When in the depths of despair we realize that nobody loves us, but that the Lord does, we latch unto this thought. Especially when we begin to realize that He knows so much better than any human being, we regain our self respect and we begin to live from a different emotional source than before. In a word, the Lord is the source of our self esteem and when it is, it is legitimate and very effective.

There are other times in our life where the love of God is very important. In certain moments we are totally alone. We may have people who love us, but they cannot be there, and we are without any support. Hostages experienced it. People who had accidents, were wounded and were left alone without any help for a long period of time, have experienced it. Political prisoners have experienced it. History tells us that in such cases people have reached back to the strong realization of the Lord's love for them in a very personal way, and they have succeeded to survive, and maintain their self esteem. When a person is left alone, and he can do nothing but pray to the God who loves him and gives him life, that person will come out on top.

To be aware of God's love for us and our love for God are the key to a life of happiness and self esteem!! Any questions??

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