The 2 great commandments and self hatred

Jamdoc · Thursday at 8:15 PM

So Jesus gave 2 great commandments:

Matthew 22

36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
38 This is the first and great commandment.
39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

but then also
Luke 14

26 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.

So self denial and self hatred.. but love your neighbors as yourself? How do you love others as yourself when you hate yourself?
I find loving others properly difficult because I have trouble loving myself. It causes me to resent others, including at times God Himself (for creating me) because I resent my own existence.

Hoping2 · Thursday at 9:38 PM

Jamdoc said:
So Jesus gave 2 great commandments:

Matthew 22

but then also
Luke 14

So self denial and self hatred.. but love your neighbors as yourself? How do you love others as yourself when you hate yourself?
I find loving others properly difficult because I have trouble loving myself. It causes me to resent others, including at times God Himself (for creating me) because I resent my own existence.

If you really hate yourself, die with Christ and be reborn as a new creature.
That is accomplished by water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of past sins. (Rom 6:3-7, Acts 2:38, Gal 5:24)
Rebirth will only occur though, if your repentance from sin is true.

Unqualified · Thursday at 10:14 PM

Be nice, be gentle, force yourself. You probably know how to love a woman. So treat others well. But think how you treat yourself. You minister to every pain. You don’t want to be depressed so you try to cheer yourself up. You feed clothe, shelter, wash yourself. You minister to every need. That’s not really self hatred. The Bible says no one ever hated his own flesh…. But nourishes, in every way, protects even emotionally. We are fearfully and wonderfully made’. love is built right into us. Even if you are homeless. That self hatred is kind of shallow.

im a firm believer you don’t need to actually love yourself to love others. If you try to love you will see and you will be loved. It just seems like we can’t. We are just a little awkward at first. Love God by obeying Him. Love people by giving them the gospel.

linux.poet · Thursday at 10:41 PM

Pretty sure the idea is to hate sin and love yourself. What is truly good for us is getting rid of sin in the power of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of God's Word, so to do that is to love yourself.

The problem is "the self" is used by some Scripture passages as a metaphor for sin. Without Christ, our sin is, in fact, ourselves. We are called to "die to sin and live for righteousness" (1 Peter 2:24) We are called not to "love the world or the things in the world." (1 John 2:15) So we are called to hate the sin nature and every sinful pleasure that it wants to grab onto. If you love your life in this fallen flesh, how are you going to abandon that to pursue hope of a life in a glorified body? That seems to be the point of Luke 14.

By contrast, in Christ we are new identities and new "selves":

2 Corinthians 5:17 said:
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.

Ephesians 4:22-23 said:
22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

Then we are called to love the self that is new, the self that follows God, and the self that loves others. We are called to love what God is transforming us into, and to encourage and help along that transformation in others. Hopefully this makes some degree of sense.

RandyPNW · Thursday at 10:48 PM

Jamdoc said:
So Jesus gave 2 great commandments:

Matthew 22
but then also
Luke 14
So self denial and self hatred.. but love your neighbors as yourself? How do you love others as yourself when you hate yourself?
I find loving others properly difficult because I have trouble loving myself. It causes me to resent others, including at times God Himself (for creating me) because I resent my own existence.

There are lots of things in the Bible that sound like contradictions. This is one of them. "Hating things" in the name of God is aligning yourself with His purposes out of love for Him. When one does this, you are able to draw upon God's resources in love to love others.

The things God hates are unjust things and aberrant activities that reflect Satan's wish to defile the things of God. We need to teach ourselves to reject these things as uncharacteristic of God's children.

When we do so we will feel like righteous citizens of God's Kingdom. It should help your self-esteem the more you align yourself with God's love and justice, rejecting those who do harm to others.

We just need to be careful when we reject sinners and their activities that we leave room for God's wrath. God is willing to forgive when people express true repentance. It is not God's kind of hatred if we become "judge, jury and executioner" without leaving room for the Judge of heaven and earth.

timothyu · Thursday at 11:01 PM

Jamdoc said:
Luke 14

This refers to rejecting the backwards thinking ways of mankind, in favour of the ways of the Kingdom., One way serves self, the other looks to the well being of all. We are to hate our self-serving ways. Self is the result of the original sin of putting our will ahead of God and eating of forbidden knowledge, thus becoming self aware. Imagine if the family pet suddenly became self aware and became like us. Humans create enough problems for each other out of selfishness without anything else joining the fray.

Veni · 2025-07-18T01:06:37-0500

Jamdoc said:
So Jesus gave 2 great commandments:

Matthew 22

but then also
Luke 14

So self denial and self hatred.. but love your neighbors as yourself? How do you love others as yourself when you hate yourself?
I find loving others properly difficult because I have trouble loving myself. It causes me to resent others, including at times God Himself (for creating me) because I resent my own existence.

Matthew 22:40
All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Luke 14:27
And whoever does not carry their cross and follow me cannot be my disciple.

fhansen · 2025-07-18T08:03:17-0500

Jamdoc said:
So Jesus gave 2 great commandments:

Matthew 22

but then also
Luke 14

So self denial and self hatred.. but love your neighbors as yourself? How do you love others as yourself when you hate yourself?
I find loving others properly difficult because I have trouble loving myself. It causes me to resent others, including at times God Himself (for creating me) because I resent my own existence.

Jesus doesn’t want us to hate ourselves, but to love God even to the willingness to give up the empty pursuits of this life, to give up this life, itself, to die to self, to our egos/pride that are actually the true source of self-hatred because they always raise standards for us to live by that we can never fulfill in any permanent or satisfactory way-and that we were never meant to fulfill. By dying to that worldly self, our natural self love actually grows.

bling · 2025-07-18T08:23:17-0500

Jamdoc said:
So Jesus gave 2 great commandments:

Matthew 22

but then also
Luke 14

So self denial and self hatred.. but love your neighbors as yourself? How do you love others as yourself when you hate yourself?
I find loving others properly difficult because I have trouble loving myself. It causes me to resent others, including at times God Himself (for creating me) because I resent my own existence.

If you have a question about "Loving others" look to scripture:
Ro. 8: 8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”[a] and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”[b] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

John 15:12 My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Maria Billingsley · 2025-07-18T08:48:45-0500

Jamdoc said:
So Jesus gave 2 great commandments:

Matthew 22

but then also
Luke 14

So self denial and self hatred.. but love your neighbors as yourself? How do you love others as yourself when you hate yourself?
I find loving others properly difficult because I have trouble loving myself. It causes me to resent others, including at times God Himself (for creating me) because I resent my own existence.

In Luke 14:26 to "hate" one's parents and other family members as well as self, it is understood as an idiom or hyperbole often used in the Jewish community. It doesn't mean literal emotional hatred, but rather a prioritizing of one's devotion to Christ above all other relationships. In other words, love for the Father comes first and is an Agape love.

Be blessed.

Jamdoc · 2025-07-18T11:17:23-0500

Unqualified said:
Be nice, be gentle, force yourself. You probably know how to love a woman. So treat others well. But think how you treat yourself. You minister to every pain. You don’t want to be depressed so you try to cheer yourself up. You feed clothe, shelter, wash yourself. You minister to every need. That’s not really self hatred. The Bible says no one ever hated his own flesh…. But nourishes, in every way, protects even emotionally. We are fearfully and wonderfully made’. love is built right into us. Even if you are homeless. That self hatred is kind of shallow.

im a firm believer you don’t need to actually love yourself to love others. If you try to love you will see and you will be loved. It just seems like we can’t. We are just a little awkward at first. Love God by obeying Him. Love people by giving them the gospel.

No you can hate yourself and still take care of things to not experience pain or at least reduce experience of pain.

As for loving a woman, not specifically no, I don't know. Not beyond very general things like loving family members, but as to what you refer to, not everyone gets that blessing. Some will never know it, I am one.

Jamdoc · 2025-07-18T12:27:32-0500

Hoping2 said:
If you really hate yourself, die with Christ and be reborn as a new creature.
That is accomplished by water baptism in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of past sins. (Rom 6:3-7, Acts 2:38, Gal 5:24)
Rebirth will only occur though, if your repentance from sin is true.

First off you're not to start in a believer's thread with doubting a person's salvation.

second off, what I hate is physical aspects of me. Getting baptized, believing on Christ, well, your body is still the same dying body after your baptism isn't it? Well mine is too but likely worse. You can renew your "inner man" but you're still tethered to a sickly disgusting corpse that you hate.

Unqualified · 2025-07-18T15:40:24-0500

I’m sorry if you are disabled but you can be a genuine kind, loving human being.. But if you want to deny that you will stay unable to do that. God says you can and where God commands God empowers. Even if you are grumpy about it. Is Gods hand too short to not reach some? No. Everybody is included.

sorry I hope I dont sound mad, I’m not mad just feel strongly that God can help anybody to have a better life. The Holy Spirit demands it and will help you or anybody get over negative behaviors if they want it. Just being saved makes us capable of loving. Because things have changed then. So don’t say you can’t. Pray, try, and the HS will help you. You can learn from your family too. Oh don’t be bitter friend, have joy, if you hate your life it’s ok. But don’t hate your eternal soul and hold it back from the victories you and God want you to have. Growth you have to go somewhere go Godly.

Jamdoc · 2025-07-18T17:53:50-0500

Unqualified said:
I’m sorry if you are disabled but you can be a genuine kind, loving human being.. But if you want to deny that you will stay unable to do that. God says you can and where God commands God empowers. Even if you are grumpy about it. Is Gods hand too short to not reach some? No. Everybody is included.

sorry I hope I dont sound mad, I’m not mad just feel strongly that God can help anybody to have a better life. The Holy Spirit demands it and will help you or anybody get over negative behaviors if they want it. Just being saved makes us capable of loving. Because things have changed then. So don’t say you can’t. Pray, try, and the HS will help you. You can learn from your family too. Oh don’t be bitter friend, have joy, if you hate your life it’s ok. But don’t hate your eternal soul and hold it back from the victories you and God want you to have. Growth you have to go somewhere go Godly.

I can be kind, but that's not really the same as love, is it?

I can be kind, I can appreciate the company of others, I can want the best things for them. But is that love? I don't know, because I don't even love myself. I try to be kind to myself in order to avoid pain and suffering, but I don't love myself.
Out of any group of people I would choose myself last. From an outside perspective, say we have the train switchtrack dilemma, with me on one track and some other person on the other track. Without even knowing the other person I would throw the switch to have myself run over rather than them. Why? because they might have value. I don't.

I know it might seem like that's the right outcome, self sacrifice, or say, choosing to die a martyr's death, I would do that too.

However I recognize in me that I would make those choices for the wrong reason.
Not because I loved the other person so much
Not because I value Christ so much
But because I value myself little, and because I know the other outcome, choosing myself over another, results in more suffering that I would experience instead.

I know this is the wrong way to make the right choice, and is not truly love.

Unqualified · 2025-07-18T18:56:29-0500

That is love. You do love yourself you’re just not calling it that. All those ways of putting others first, that is love. You are humble. The Bible says don’t think of yourself more highly than you ought’ . Following that is love of God and love of others. You’re loving others while calling it thinking little of yourself. God loves you just the way you are. Be yourself. But don’t take this liberty as an opportunity for the flesh. Don’t be hard on yourself, don’t be angry and mistreat others. Be thankful you belong to God are loved so love one another. Put the scriptures into play. Kindness is love. You’ll win more friends by being kind than you will being grumpy.

BobRyan · 2025-07-18T21:54:53-0500

Jamdoc said:
So Jesus gave 2 great commandments:

Matthew 22

but then also
Luke 14

So self denial and self hatred.. but love your neighbors as yourself? How do you love others as yourself when you hate yourself?
I find loving others properly difficult because I have trouble loving myself. It causes me to resent others, including at times God Himself (for creating me) because I resent my own existence.

You have value because of God - not because of your goodness.

1 John 2:2 Jesus "is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not for our sins but for the sins of the whole world"

That means that the lake-of-fire death in hell owed for each and every one of your sins - was paid for personally by Christ Himself.

The value of an object is determined by the price someone is willing to pay for it. Christ paid a huge price for you - no matter what you think of yourself.

He wants to do a miracle -- the one at the end of 2 Corinthians 5. "If anyone is in Christ He is a NEW CREATION old things passed away all things become new".

Salvation is NOT simply a minor improvement on the old-you - it is an entirely new creation

Hoping2 · 2025-07-18T22:09:30-0500

Jamdoc said:
First off you're not to start in a believer's thread with doubting a person's salvation.

I answered your question.
I didn't comment on anyone's salvation/conversion.

Jamdoc said:
second off, what I hate is physical aspects of me. Getting baptized, believing on Christ, well, your body is still the same dying body after your baptism isn't it?

No.
It is not YOUR body anymore; it is Christ in your body.
"I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me." (Gal 2:20)

Jamdoc said:
Well mine is too but likely worse. You can renew your "inner man" but you're still tethered to a sickly disgusting corpse that you hate.

I can't hate the vessel of God's Spirit.
It may have bad parts, but God can overcome anything wrong with His temple.
Paul had problems, and God told him "My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor 12:9)
Be well.

Jamdoc · 2025-07-18T23:28:40-0500

BobRyan said:
You have value because of God - not because of your goodness.

1 John 2:2 Jesus "is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not for our sins but for the sins of the whole world"

That means that the lake-of-fire death in hell owed for each and every one of your sins - was paid for personally by Christ Himself.

The value of an object is determined by the price someone is willing to pay for it. Christ paid a huge price for you - no matter what you think of yourself.

He wants to do a miracle -- the one at the end of 2 Corinthians 5. "If anyone is in Christ He is a NEW CREATION old things passed away all things become new".

Salvation is NOT simply a minor improvement on the old-you - it is an entirely new creation

I always think of it as He got ripped off in the purchase.

but the fact that it was a purchase is probably the biggest reason I'm no actual threat to myself.
destruction of someone else's property.

However how I can think of it..

in 2nd Samuel 9, King David asks after anyone surviving from Saul's house that he could show kindness for Johnathan's (Saul's son and David's best friend) sake.
There was a son of Johnathan named Mephibosheth, who was a cripple, so David had him brought to himself. Mephibosheth threw himself at David's feet for mercy, as Saul had tried to have David killed, so in Mephibosheth's mind David had him dead to rights. David instead gave him all the lands that belonged to Saul, and all of Saul's servants to help him, and said that he and his son would be treated as the King's sons, and have food at his table always.
It should sound familiar doesn't it?
A wretched man throwing himself at the feet of the King, who could rightfully kill him, asking for mercy. Which the King not only grants, but extends extra undeserved kindness towards the wretch.. not for his own sake, but for the sake of another due to their relationship.
David even outright terms this is a display of the kindness of God. It is a pre-incarnate picture of Salvation.
Mephibosheth (me) cannot be a proper servant, he is incapable of any real labor on David's behalf, he can never repay the King's kindness towards him, and he knows he does not deserve his treatment.
We are ultimately all Mephibosheth in this picture, I just know more literally and intimately than many.

but ultimately in the purchase I get the kindness of God, and He gets a wretched servant unable to serve as well as others.

Fervent · 2025-07-19T00:23:27-0500

Hint:

Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ

The 2 great commandments and self hatred

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