I checked out a church in Brentwood that’s only been around for a year. I was told the pastor used to be at Christ Church (a HUGE church here in Nashville) but left there to start this new community a few miles away.

It was interesting. There was a pretty good sized crowd, but not a really huge one. The music was good — though I only caught the last couple songs, ’cause of course I was late. — Hey, when you start something at 9:30am and it’ll take me about a half hour to get there, just count on it, I’ll be late. And early riser I’m not.

Anyway, the pastor was pretty good. He was casually dressed and sat on a stool most of the time. Those of you from Mosaic will recognize the format. 🙂 I really liked his talked, until his last point. Then he lost me.

He was focusing on 2 Corinkthians 8, which is kinda funny to me, since I’ve been in 2 Corinthians during my alone times with Jesus the last couple of weeks. Paul was talking about giving the church at Corinth a chance to prove that their love is sincere by giving to the church in Jeruselem what they had promised to give a year prior. Stan, the pastor, talked about how God gives to us in abundance all that we need (see chapter nine for more on this) and that God Himself loves to lavish His creation with gifts. And that God longs for us to be like Him. Stan also talked about how our motive for giving to others who are in need should not be to be seen or known for our “generosity”; that our generosity proves out the sencerity of our love — for God and for others.

Okay, I’m with him so far. But then he took this radical left turn…. and lost me. He started in on how we can’t just go from loving God to loving and giving to others. He said there’s a vital step that many miss… and that’s learning to love ourselves. And by the time he was done he was focusing more about learning to accept the love of God and love ourselves the way He loves us, than he was on being generous with our lives and spending ourselves for the cause of Christ.

Now, I agree that part of becoming a generous person is recognizing how deeply and richly God loves us. Before we can spend ourselves for a cause, we need to know that our Source will not fail us, not run dry or just run out on us. But honestly, when people begin focusing on loving ourselves, it just creeps me out. Maybe it’s the phrase “love yourself”, or maybe it’s because I can find nothing in the Bible that says we need to learn how to do that. I see lots of places, however, where it seems to me to imply, infer, or even flat out state that we have no problem doing that. Jesus didn’t make a big deal of it when he said, “love others as you love yourself.” He just said it. “Love God. Love others — as you love yourself.”

So, does that me that we must love ourselves before we can love others? Or does that mean that we love others as we are loving ourselves. Kinda like you clean the kitchen as you do the dishes… or do you clean the kitchen first, then do the dishes…?

This is one that always gets me all messed up. Perhaps that’s why I just don’t dwell on it much. But in the conversations I had with people the last few weeks, it seems to be a theme in the lives of people here in Nashville. At least for some. And it’s a huge theme for this church I went to. In fact, their motto is: “Love God. Love Yourself. Love Others.” Hmmm….. that sounds rather backwords to me.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I don’t think we should never take care of ourselves or make sure our needs are met. I just don’t think NOT loving ourselves is really an issue in today’s world. We make sure we get a showever every day, right? Make sure we get food when our stomaches growls — even if it growls for quite some time, we still make sure we fed. And when someone steps on our “rights” or over our “boundaries” we’re usually pretty quick to tell them. You want proof? What was your reaction to the last person who cut you off on the freeway…? 🙂

I often wonder, and sometimes am convinced, that people are just using the “I’m learning to love myself” or “I need to love/take care of myself first” card as an excuse for their stingyness and spiritual lethargy.

I really believe Jesus was saying that we should love others as we are loving ourselves…. not just like we love ourselves, but as we learn how to accept and believe His unbelievable, unfailing, unconditional and unending love for us. As we see that our Source will never fail us, never run dry, never run out on us, we will be too full of love to contain it.

I just don’t want to focus on loving myself. I want to focus on loving others with the unending resevoir of love Jesus drenches me in every day. If I’m psychologically unsound, so be it.