If we could get a glimpse of what love does in the spirit realm, we would whole heartedly lay down everything to fully become love. “The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread,” Mother Teresa. Love is seeing with His eyes. When we see people the way God sees them, we can only see the gold in them, the destiny in them, the worth in them, and God in them.
2 Corinthians 5:14 For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; 15 and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. 16 Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. 17 Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come. 18 Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, 19 namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation. (NASB)
We regard no one according to the flesh because we have His eyes and we are called to imitate God and not count people's trespasses against them so people can see God in us reconciling them back to Him. Loving ourselves and understanding how God sees us enables us to love people the way they should be loved.
Song of Solomon 1:15 "How beautiful you are, my darling, How beautiful you are! Your eyes are like doves." (NASB) What was Solomon saying when He said, “Your eyes are like doves”? Song of Solomon is a back and forth romantic exchange between us (God’s bride) and Him (Jesus). Verse 15 is Him speaking to us. Doves represent Holy Spirit. Luke 3:21 When all the people were baptized, it came to pass that Jesus also was baptized; and while He prayed, the heaven was opened. 22 And the Holy Spirit descended in bodily form like a dove upon Him, and a voice came from heaven which said, “You are My beloved Son; in You I am well pleased.” (NKJV) He says the same to you, “You are My beloved child; in You I am well pleased.” You have been pleasing to God before the foundation of the world, Ephesians 1:4.
He sees us as being filled with Him. We have His eyes. Matthew 6:22 "The eye is the lamp of the body; so then if your eye is clear, your whole body will be full of light. (NASB) The word for ‘clear’ in this verse in the Greek is haplous- unfolded, single – literally, referring to a single (undivided) focus, without a (secret) double agenda. When our agenda is to love with no strings attached we have dove’s eyes that are filled with the light of the world and the Kingdom within us cannot be hidden.
Galatians 5:14… You shall love your neighbor as [you do] yourself. I believe people are loving others the way they love themselves, which is far below our standard. How are you going to love others the way they are supposed to be loved, if we don’t love ourselves the way we are supposed to? Ephesians 1:4 Long ago, even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes (NLT). We are holy in God’s eyes. Holy in the Greek, hagios-different (unlike), other, holy; for the believer, hágios means "likeness of nature with the Lord" because "different from the world."
We should see ourselves the way God sees us so we can see others the way Him sees them. We are the very likeness of His nature. We have been born from above. This is what it says in the in Romans 5:6 [For] When we were unable to help ourselves [still helpless/weak], at the right [or appointed] time, Christ died for us sinners [the ungodly/wicked]. 7 Very few people will [or Rarely/Scarcely will anyone] die for a righteous [just; pious] person. Although perhaps for a good [truly good; noble] person someone might possibly die [the “righteous” person may be someone who is outwardly religious, while the “good” person is genuinely generous and loving]. 8 But God shows [demonstrates; proves] his great [own] love for us in this way: Christ died for us while we were still sinners. (Expanded Bible)
Jesus died for you when you wanted nothing to do with Him. Why? Because He sees your value, He sees who you really are, and He is going to love you right into it! That’s how we are supposed to love other people. We are supposed to see the value in them and point it out to them and then love them into it, because we are called to imitate God (Ephesians 5:1) and that’s what God does. But we can’t do it until we love and see ourselves the way God sees us through the blood stained lens of His perfect Son Jesus Christ. God sees you as 100% righteous in His eyes.
You are a palace fit for a King. God seems to think so. That’s why He you washed you spotless. How much more can He love us? Colossians 1:22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault (NLT). God’s opinion of you will never change, He is absolutely bonkers about you. Hebrews 10:14 For by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified (KJV). The word for sanctified is the same word for holy (hagiazó) in Ephesians 1:4.
He LOVES you! You might say, “Well that’s great, but that’s not my experience.” We are not called to live by past experiences, we are called to live by Truth. Walk in, preach, and demonstrate Truth and your experience will catch up. God is patient and kind with us. He never dishonors us. He is not easily angered towards us and He keeps no record of our wrongs. God does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. He always protects, He always trusts, He always hopes, He always perseveres. God never fails, and He has given us everything needed (2 Peter 1:3) to imitate Him (Ephesians 5:1).
The problem comes when we use our circumstances as the barometer of how much God loves us. You will never grasp how much God loves you if you measure His love for you by life’s circumstances. His love for us is not shown through our circumstances, it was already shown when Jesus died to make you blameless before the Father (Romans 5:8). There is a devil that comes to kill, steal, and destroy and if we gauge how loved we are by life’s circumstances then the enemy will keep you on shaky ground. Death, loss, or destruction is never from God. God loves you 100%, 100% of the time. This is not my opinion this is His Word, and His Word trumps everything. He says in Psalm 138:2 that His Word is above ALL things. So what He says about you through His written Word, He holds above all things!
Psalm 139:17 How precious also are Your thoughts to me, O God! How vast is the sum of them! 18 If I should count them, they would outnumber the sand. When I awake, I am still with You (NASB). Pick up a handful of sand and try and count just the grains of sand that you can hold in your hand. Good luck! Then look down the beach and try and count all the sand on the beach. Good luck! Good has more good thoughts about you than all of that. That would be a good verse to meditate on forever. “I cannot afford to have a thought in my head about me that is not in His,” Bill Johnson.
So like I said at the beginning, I believe people in deed are loving others the way they love themselves, which is far below our standard. 1 Corinthians 6:19 Or didn't you realize that your body is a sacred place, the place of the Holy Spirit? Don't you see that you can't live however you please, squandering what God paid such a high price for? The physical part of you is not some piece of property belonging to the spiritual part of you. 20 God owns the whole works. So let people see God in and through your body. (Message) People see God through you when you walk in love, and you will see people the way you see yourself. You will love people the way you love yourself.
The loving eyes of God are set squarely on you and your amazing and wonderful value. He sees you as spotless and 100% righteous because of what Jesus did on the cross. John 3:16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life (WEB). God loves you so much that he put all your sins on His perfect Son, so you could be as perfect as His Son in His eyes. It would benefit us to love ourselves the way He loves us, so we can love others the way He loves them.
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