We are, truly, hearts and souls and minds and strengths, all woven together to be a kind of basket designed to hold delight in God.

Loving others well will involve a new perspective on them and new practices in our relationship.

Jesus is our goal, He embodies what we would wish for ourselves, and all we hope for comes to us in Him.

How do we direct properly loving actions toward ourselves? What is “biblical self-care”?

How do we love ourselves in the way Jesus intended when He said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself”?

It’s important to understand that when we talk about loving ourselves, it is always connected to, grows from, and grows toward, our love for God.

On the one hand, gratitude is everywhere praised in Scripture, and we know that we have more to be thankful for than anyone. On the other hand, we all still struggle with “the love of the world and the things in the world.”

God loves us. God loves you. God loves me. God loves them.

God’s love is proper and true. His love is not cheap self-care hacks, or unhealthy self-absorption. His love is healing, hope-giving, good and right.

There is something about how we “love God” that can help us understand how we are “to love ourselves” in a way that draws us toward loving others well.

Nowhere is the upside-down glory of God’s ways as prominent, surprising, and delightful, as in the birth, life, ministry, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

The will of God delivers justice, mercy, and does so with astonishing wisdom.

We love God’s works because they are wonderful. His awesome power, His wisdom, are on full display in all He has done to work our Great Salvation. Nowhere is this as clear as in the life of Jesus Christ.

As we continue to reflect on what we love when we love God, let us consider what God’s Word has accomplished. That is, last week we saw what God’s Word is, and now let’s look at what God’s Word does.

What we love when we love someone is, we love them. Nonetheless, it is appropriate to describe what we love about them specifically.

What we would see, if we could see God truly, would be an infinite—never-begun and never-ending—perfect, all-powerful, all-wise, mutual delight. Each person of God directs all of the virtues of God to the adoration and celebration of the other persons of God.

Hawaii has a lot of natural beauty, but they lack the resources necessary for stable, healthy, growing, Gospel preaching churches. Our partnership with Oahu Theological Seminary is working to change that. And it's working.

This is the beginning of a short series of reflections on What We Love When We Love God. What we’ll find is that, Yes, our journey into His love will do something to us that will prepare us for doing something for others.

In two weeks I will be flying to Hawaii to visit Fellowship Bible Church’s ministry partners, the Bruno family and Oahu Theological Seminary.
 
Let me tell you the story.