Two Great Commandments plus One!

The greatest commandment is love and everyone nows that by now, though not everyone does it per se. Anyways, at least we know. Ok. But then one more struggle is understanding the objects of the love. Who do I love and how much? Can I really love everyone equally? What about the unloveables? Of course there are people that no matter how much you try to love them they keep resisting your love. The greatest teacher of divine truths of all time, Jesus of Nazareth taught when asked, What is the greatest of the commandments? He said, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might, and the second is like it; love your neighbor as yourself. There are two directions right there. One is directed to God and no one seems to have much trouble with that because God is invisible and we can say we love Him when we really don't. Hmmnn! It is the receipient of love that can really attest to the genuineness of our love. So God is the only One who can tell how much we really love Him and care about Him. The other is directed at the neighbors; Love your neighbor as yourself. There is no hiding place with that. We can tell right here and now if we truly from our hearts love our neighbors as ourselves. Further questions with that is usually, who is my neighbor then? Is it someone with whom I share something in common? We do not always need to be told that, it seems the most natural thing to do, we easily love and act kindly towards people that share something in common with us; same parents, same cultural background, same religious affiliation and the list can be numerous. We do not ask, who is my neighbor in order to know who to love but usually in order to know who not to love. We try to relief ourselves by cutting down on the extent of the expectation to love; cut down on the list of people that can be loved. The Greatest Teacher however, showed us that it is anyone in the image of God called human for whom we can be responsible to provide any kind of care and support. Remember 'the Good Samaritan'? Even those who go to church once a year will know it including those who do not go to church at all. The neighbor is the guy lying there in need regardless of his color, race, socio-economic status or even his religious status. Shocking, isn't it?
Well, we often view this commandment as two but we leave out the third which is the standard for the second. You cannot obey the second command without it! You get what I'm talking about? Yourself! You will love your neighbor as yourself. There goes out the third command; Love yourself. If you do not love yourself, you cannot know how to love your neighbor as yourself. There is an assumption in that command that every normal person will love themselves without a command to do so, based on the selfish nature of man. It is important to bring it out however, due to the lack of love for self that some have displayed in history of mankind. If a person can commit suicide, then he can kill anyone. He does not like himself, so he can hurt another. You can't love others if you do not have love for yourself. Do you really love yourself? Good question. Slow down a little bit and consider how many times you have done things that you know quite well is not good for you. Eating stuffs you know won't help your body. Going to dangerous places and you keep asking yourself, What are you doing here? Yet, you drove there by yourself. You are training yourself how to treat others by how you treat yourself. Check out the golden rule for a moment; Do unto others as you want others to do unto you. What do you want to be done unto you; even if it is not done unto you, do it to others because if you were in their shoes you would want it.
If you are struggling with loving others, may be you have a problem loving yourself. That may be a starting point for you. What are your thoughts like towards yourself? What are your expectations for yourself? What are your motivations for yourself? How do you encourage yourself unto greater heights? How do you dress and address yourself? What are your aspirations in life? What kind of relationship do you wish for yourself? Are you one of those who do not expect anything good from life?
When you love God with all your hearts, He changes you from inside out so you can love yourself as He loves you; then you can go on to love others, doing unto them and thinking towards them what you desire for yourself learned from what He desires for you.
Enough of self pity and over dependence on others to determine your existence, begin yourself. Your life is not defined by the view of you by others, the greatest definition of you is yours. Be your own best friend, greatest counselor and sweetest companion. You can't have a better friend than yourself. Do what you must do because you can only give what you have. If you don't have love flowing in you, it can't flow through you.Someone is waiting to be loved by you, and the standard to use is how much you got of love on the inside.
Love you.
Felix