The Bible teaches us that we should not expect to be perfect, but we can improve and we can love!
There are three essential requirements for living a healthy spiritual life; love God, love others and love yourself. see Matthew 22:37-40
1. Loving God
Loving God is easy, especially when we try and take in all of Creation. There are so many wonderful things that populate our universe. If you love a sunrise, sunset, star filled night, trees, flowers, mountains, rivers, animals… others… you are loving God.
2. Loving others
Loving people is easy with some, but not so easy with others.
If someone helps a weak elderly lady across the street, then we can easily love the “Good Samaritan” for that. And we love the elderly lady for accepting another’s help.
But if someone viciously knocks her down, then how can we love the perpetrator for that? The perpetrator desperately needs repentance.
The perpetrator needs to seek help. God wants us to help others. The perpetrator needs isolation from victims and help dealing with their demon.
Jail works for some.
Loving oneself is easy if we follow God’s will. But loving oneself is difficult if we continually focus on our mistakes or let the demon win.
God gives us all the help we need when we follow Jesus’s teachings. That activity, leads others into helping us and us into helping others. Doing our best to think and act in Jesus’s example leads us into forgiving and loving ourselves and seeking help from and for others.
Voices
If you’re anything like me, you’ve always had three voices in your head. These voices challenge, guide, and console. These three voices are your lifelong inner companions.
First and foremost, is the consoling “self” voice. The one we control and are responsible for. This “self” inner voice communicates with the other two inner voices. “Self” serves as judge and jury for our conscious and decides how well we feel. How we feel about ourself depends on which of the two other voices that we “listen” to.
Which brings me to voice number two. At some point, all of us struggle with this creature. Voice two is a little bit annoyingly aggressively intimidating or a lot intimidating depending on how the “self” deals with this particularly challenging inner voice. Voice two is evil and encourages us to do bad things. Like ignore someone or some creature who needs our help. Take that something that doesn’t belong to us. Purposely break a window. Harm ourself or someone else. Or try to convince the “self” that we don’t need that third inner voice. Voice “two” is the enemy.
Which brings me to the third and most incredible voice. Incredible because of voice three’s wonderfully delightful and powerful techniques of communication. Voice three is benignly patient and listens more than talks because He can get His point across in many simple and subtle ways. Voice “three” is the guiding friend.
Listening
Voice number one, the “self” voice, is our most important voice because it’s the real YOU. Our behavior reveals our “self”. And indicates whether we follow “two”, the Devil’s aggression or “three”, God’s good, pleasing and perfect will.
We cannot blame our behavior on the Devil, or on God. The “self” is controlled by each of us alone and not anyone else. Our own inner “self” voice is the ultimate decision maker in how we behave.
With mental illnesses and temptations, our “self” should seek out and allow others to help when we feel control slipping away. Otherwise, voice “two”, the enemy, wins.
Voice “three” is our own personal supernatural, superhelper, superfriend. And we share Him throughout with everyone else. His power has no boundaries. He helps us directly plus through the work of many others and by many different means. We should listen most to Him because we know He loves us. “Three” is our multidimensional best friend who happens to create universes.
Works
Evil is readily identifiable when it’s self-serving and harms others. Evil can also be subtle. None of us can justify dictating thoughts to others. And loving others doesn’t mean giving up our ability to defend ourselves. Defending ourself and others against evil is an act of love.
Everyone has issues of some sort. You’re not alive if you don’t face problems. Many of our own problems go inwardly unnoticed if our thinking stems from delusional self righteousness or degrading self loathing. If we believe that we are superior or inferior to others, we fail God’s will for our thoughts and behavior. We are all equal in God’s eyes. Love is unconditional at its core. And we are ALL works in progress.
