Love and Hate

Jesus says that we shall love our neighbor as ourselves. Shall we then love ourselves? It is written: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself . . . .” This is one of the two commandments on which hang all the Law and the Prophets. Matt. 22:39-40. This requirement of the law must also be fulfilled in those who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. Rom. 8:4. It is written about loving yourself here. Yet Jesus says that the person who loves his life will lose it, and if he hates his life in this world he will keep it for eternal life.

Shall we love ourselves? Yes! We shall love ourselves unto salvation, unto sanctification, unto growth and progress in God. We openly acknowledge the fact that we love ourselves by praying: “God, bless me, let me receive, lead me onward,” etc. This goes to show that we sincerely love ourselves. (It is something else to hate your life in this world—your self-life.) But now we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Then your care for the others becomes just as great as your care for yourself. Then this is the result: “Bless my brother, bless my sister; let my brother have this; lead this sister onward on Your ways; fill them with much grace and strength.” Then it is just as important for the others to receive as it is for you.

Everything you want others to do to you, you shall do to them. This requirement is also fulfilled in those who walk according to the Spirit. It is essentially the same as the first requirement, only expressed differently. Heed this word, and you will surely reap blessings. Believers frequently say, “Pray for me.” But what you want the other person to do to you and for you, you shall do for him. Therefore Jesus says, “So likewise, whoever of you does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple. Salt is good, but if the salt has lost its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is neither fit for the land nor for the dunghill, but men throw it out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

The condition for being Jesus’ disciple is to forsake. The way to be blessed is to forsake. God said to Abraham: “Leave!” And Abraham left his land, but he received his own land as his possession. God said further: “Sacrifice your son, your only son, whom you love!” Abraham did that, and the blessing came when God said to him that his descendants would be like the stars of heaven. Flee the corruption that is in the world through lust, and God will give you divine nature.

What does it mean to forsake everything? Does it only mean that you give God your sins, the sins under which you have sighed and which you were desperate to get rid of? Not at all! It means that you forsake everything that God points out in your life. We cannot forsake anything more than what God’s light illuminates, for we cannot see further than that. But we must also be faithful so we can be salt. If I have forsaken everything today as far as the light shines, God can illuminate more that has to be forsaken in my life tomorrow. It is God who reveals our life. When He reveals it and shows us what we have to forsake, no one can close it; it will stay in our mind until it has been removed. However, in order to be true salt, we can seek light, examine ourselves, and then act accordingly.

Forsaking everything means that the heart is torn loose from the present and is bound to heavenly things. Paul says: “Time is short, so that from now on even those who have wives should be as though they had none, those who weep as though they did not weep, those who rejoice as though they did not rejoice, those who buy as though they did not possess, and those who use this world as not misusing it. For the form of this world is passing away. But I want you to be without care. . . . And this I say for your own profit, not that I may put a leash on you, but for what is proper, and that you may serve the Lord without distraction.” 1 Cor. 7:29, ff. Let us develop this idea further, this matter of what it means to forsake everything. In Hebrews 10:5-7 we find the following: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, but a body You have prepared for Me. In burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin you had no pleasure. Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come—in the volume of the book it is written of Me—to do Your will, O God.’” In Hebrews 9:5 we find this expression: “Of these things we can now speak only in part.” In the new covenant there are no parts; the sacrifice is a complete sacrifice. Often God’s people forsake this or that of outward things, or they give something or other this or that as a gift. Yet the Lord says, “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire . . . .” This “in part” belongs to the Old Testament. If a person forsakes outward things in part, according to an inner conviction, he has still not come to what the Lord desires: our body—a body with which to do the Lord’s will. We do not speak “in part” about the body. The body is complete. (It is another matter that we understand in part.) The body is meant to be sacrificed. Rom. 12:1. When the Lord receives the body, He has received everything. When Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, spare yourself,” Jesus said: “Get behind Me, Satan, for you don’t understand the things that belong to God but only the things that belong to man.” What was it that belonged to God? The body! Therefore Jesus could use it for whatever He wanted, and He used it as a sacrifice. Jesus says, “Give to God the things that belong to God!”