"Loving God, Loving Myself" Week Two, Day Three -- Assumptions"

We are created by love, to live in love, for the sake of love.

—Gerald May

An assumption is a “no-brainer,” a supposition assumed to be true without proof, something that is taken for granted. There are three Scriptures in the gospel of Matthew that make assumptions. The first is in Matthew 6:12—the Lord’s Prayer.

When I was a child, the members at my church all joined in to pray the Lord’s Prayer. I used to look around at them and wonder why everyone found that prayer so easy to pray—particularly when we were asking God to forgive us just as we forgave those who had hurt us, wronged us, broken us, sinned against us, offended us, rejected us. I wanted to shout out, “Really, people? You actually want God to forgive you exactly the same way you forgive others?” I knew these people, and many of them “forgave” by getting even, cutting others off, cursing them, giving them the silent treatment, gossiping about them, criticizing them, judging them, and justifying their anger toward them.

I hope God is more merciful to me than I am to others and to myself.  And the great news is that he is, because he can’t deny his own nature—he is love.

We find two other assumptions of Scripture in Matthew 22:37–39. The first involves the Great Commandment: “Love the Lord your God.” How? “With all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” In other words, with all you’ve got, nothing held back—with everything.

First assumption: When we love the Lord, we can take for granted that we are to do so with all of our heart. But Jesus says there is a second command that hangs right next to the first: “Love your neighbor.” How? “As much as you love yourself.”

And that leads us to our second assumption: If we are to love others as we love ourselves, then it seems Jesus is saying that loving ourselves is something else we can take for granted—as if everyone loves (and likes) themselves. Jesus actually uses it as the standard so we can know how much we need to love others.  

So ponder this: How do you think God feels when his children, whom he personally created, do not like themselves or love themselves; when they criticize themselves, reject themselves, harm themselves, or curse themselves? I think that just as you would want to encourage and affirm a child who was down on himself, our Father longs to do the same for us, except perfectly.

Stop for a moment and feel his deep longing that you would see what he sees when he looks at you, feel what he feels in his heart toward you. It may seem wrong to believe what he says about you—even a little prideful and arrogant. But what God says is true no matter what you think or whether you agree with him. After all, he designed you, and you are not damaged goods. His primary focus is to draw you lovingly back into the truth about who you are.

And that truth, the truth of how much he loves you, is a perfect place for another assumption: There is nothing you can ever do to make God love you less. And right alongside it hangs another assumption like it: There is nothing you can ever do to make God love you more. That is how God loves—and that’s the truth. A no-brainer.

Prayer

Father, how gracious of you to always assume the best about me, believe in me, and cheer me on. It is quite overwhelming to think how vast your heart for me is. How can I hold so much love in this broken vessel? Thank you that you give me grace for the journey—grace to grow and become more of who you made me to be. I know there will be pain and sorrows to bear. I know you will stretch me along the way. Help me know that the stretching will enlarge my heart’s capacity to love. And love is at the center of the greatest commandments. Love God. Love self (so I have something that can overflow onto others). Then love others. A perfect circle.

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