Lee and LC: Home Runs and Strikeouts

[Drake]

Originally Posted by Igzy

So the love he is talking about for the self, which we are supposed to use as a model for how to love our neighbor, must be pure and of God. How does God view us and want us to view ourselves? As precious and good creations of his! Once you see that he wants us to see ourselves that way, we can then go on to view others that way. In some cases, it is the reverse. Sometimes we see how much God loves others and how much he wants us to love them, and then we see we can love ourselves in the same way. This is healthy, holy self love.

God loves himself. We are in the image of God. If we are to be like God we must love ourselves too, not in the fallen selfish, me-first way of the world, but in the pure, holy way God loves himself.

Further, you cannot truly love your neighbor if you don't love yourself. Self-loathing people are crippled when it comes to loving others. A person who likes and loves himself in a holy and healthy way is gracious and giving. He knows he is rich and has much to give.

The self love the Bible condemns is the fallen, me-first kind. That is not holy self love. Holy self love sees oneself as a precious creation of God, and loves oneself the same, neither better nor worse than all the other precious creations of God.

There are several errors in this line of thinking. I'll address just three in this post.

First, the Bible does not teach ""Love yourself as your neighbor." The Bible teaches that we should love God, love the brothers, love our neighbor, etc. but it never teaches that we should love ourselves. What Igzy has done in this case is flip the clear teaching of the Bible to fit his private interpretation, philosophy, or opinion. On the contrary, the Bible teaches that we should not love ourselves even unto death (Rev 12:11). The Lord stated even more forcefully this way:

"If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple." Luke 14:26

The Lord was not practicing a form of self-loathing or asceticism, rather, He was stating a fact that concerns all those of Adam. This is the second point: It is the same experience Paul observed:

"For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not." Romans 7:18

Why? Because....

"Now then it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." v17

Igzy's teaching of our position as God's created beings as its basis fails to recognize and omits to factor in that since the fall of man, we His created beings, are absolutely fallen... to the extent that God has judged the flesh, the self, and crucified the old man (Galatians 2:20). Therefore, his teaching ""Love yourself as your neighbor." is not a biblical one and will not be found in scripture because it isn't there. It lacks the revelation of God's Word. Igzy has assessed that the way to find your soul, the way to glorify God is or begins by loving yourself. We should rather trust God's assessment of our situation. To be perfectly clear, Igzy's teaching about loving the self is a worldly teaching, something one might receive in psychology or therapy sessions. It's not what the Bible teaches.

The last point I will address in this post is about the practice or manifestation of Igzy's teaching. He says "Self-love which conflicts with loving others is not real love. It is fallen self-obsession. ". The Bible says

"We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren. He that loveth not his brother abideth in death." I John 3:14

The reader will have to decide if Igzy's teaching has any reality to it by reading his posts, but from my point of view, one who rails against, berates, and slanders brothers in the Lord day in and day out in a public forum as he practices here in this one has not passed out of death into life in reality. His practice even falls short by his own teaching standard "...not loving others is not real love. "

Drake