Do you love yourself? God Himself expects you to! In Mark 12:31 is bible encouragement for self esteem.
After the command to love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, Jesus says: “And the second, like it, is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”
Notice the scripture says to love your neighbor as yourself. This means “in addition to,” not instead of! Think about how you treat others:
- Do you ignore them?
- Do you insult them?
- Do you abuse them?
I hope not! And yet, many of us do this to ourselves without thinking. When you insult, abuse, or neglect yourself, you are mistreating the one whom God Himself created. According to 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Have you ever considered what an HONOR this is?
Meditate on these Biblical words of encouragement: You have God’s love, power, and strength living in your body. In the Bible, the ancient temple is described this way:
- Beautiful
- Magnificent
- Glorious
- Great
- Wonderful
If these words were used to describe a building, how much more do they describe the living, breathing miracle that you are? Think about it.
Over the weekend, I asked you to vote on the new Take Back Your Temple logo. Over 500 of you responded and the results are in. And the honor goes to…
·         Logo #3 with 75% of the vote. I heard words like “freedom,” “joy,” and “worship” to describe the feelings it represents.
We decided to offer the logo on a T-shirt to help encourage yourself to “take it back” on your weight loss journey. They will be a great encouragement to you as you change your health for the better. You can also do a T-shirt challenge and use the shirt to measure your progress as you lose inches:
My prayer is that you live the reality of Romans 4:38-39, one of the Biblical inspirational quotes: “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Since you are a “created thing,” there is nothing you have done or can do to separate yourself from God’s love through Jesus Christ! Embrace who God created you to be. In fact, give yourself a big hug right now!
Embrace the honor you have been given, never forgetting that you were created to glorify God in body and Spirit!
Kimberly Taylor
Take Back Your Temple