Resonance

Category: Self-love

  • What It Really Means to Love

    If hate could heal the world, the world wouldn’t be this broken. Hate, like cancer, is eating into the earth like a vulture eats carcasses. Love, like healing rain, is the only web that unity, trust, understanding, faithfulness and truth can connect. The concept of love has not been over-emphasized: it has only been misconstrued.

    Loving God (Deut 6:5) and loving your neighbour (Lev 19:18) were laws in the Torah that God instructed the people of Israel through Moses, so loving one another is an age-old concept. However, because there are different words for love in Greek, the “old” commandment sounded like this; Love God with the love of God (Greek: Agape) and love your neighbour with brotherly love (Greek: philia).

    In John 21:15-17, Jesus asked Peter 3 times if he loves Him with the Love of God (agape). Peter responded that he loved Him as a brother (phileo). In other words, we are not fully loving if we do not love how Love loves. Love loves freely and fully. Love is not even fully manifested in brotherly love, which loves people of their kind only. It is only fully manifested in agape, the God-kind of Love. Love loves all the way through.

    Jesus is saying He is giving us a new commandment. What makes this commandment new? Here it is; “As I have loved you”. A quick question anyone will ask is, “How do I love another with the Love of God?”. Jesus answered that perfectly; “As I have loved you”. Jesus is the epitome and embodiment of the Love of God. Romans 5:5 makes us understand that God continually pours His Love into our hearts. He wants you to love Him with this same Love, love yourself, and extend this same Love to others.

    This love, of course, won’t make any sense to one who hasn’t encountered the Love of God. It won’t make sense to leave 99 sheep and go in search of one, except when you realize that that one lost sheep was you. It’s the kind of love that waits earnestly on the rooftop, eagerly hoping to see us return home. It’s the kind of love that sees our poor wretched souls from afar and meets us halfway, lavishing us with kisses even in our dirtiness.

    This love is not the kind of Love that waits till you’re good enough. It’s the kind of Love that loves you good enough till everything sees it burning in your heart. This is a distinguishing Love: loving one another with the Love of God. God wants to love others through you too. “God loves you” is not enough to make the lost know he is worthy of love. Jesus wants this unconditional Love to be the distinguishing factor of His disciples. He said, “If you have a love for one another, then everyone will know that you are my disciples.”

    Love like Him ❤️

  • Integrity vs Promiscuity: Which One Is More Difficult?

    Integrity vs Promiscuity: Which One Is More Difficult?

    We live in a generation where morality and integrity have become a matter of opinion. Moral bankruptcy is so high that in many contexts, those who choose to do the right thing are made to feel bad and those who do what is bad feel good about it. Because as human as we are we need a sense of belonging and acceptance, we compromise and become complacent just to fit in. Sooner or later, we lose our conscience and we are just like everyone else. Living a certain lifestyle because “everyone is doing it” is the dumbest logic if not one of the dumbest.

    We are living in a generation that has made promiscuity look so easy and integrity, difficult. Which one is more difficult to do, fleeing from danger or embracing danger? If we are embracing promiscuity, it is because we have viewed it as a place of comfort rather than that of danger. Physical attraction is an animal instinct and the sex drive is pretty much proactive in our youth. Nonetheless, giving in to our bodily passions can bring about consequences much more dilapidating to even our bodies. We cannot always control how we feel, especially in the sexual sense. What we can do, however, is control what we do when we feel what we feel. Surely, our actions can fuel or dissolve whatever we feel in any context.

    Your Feelings Are Not Your Justification

    integrity

    Acting based on our feelings makes us as immature and desperate as a cock on heat. In the same vein, we cannot always control what we think about. What we can control is what we do with that thought. No matter what, the final decision of what action to take lies in our hands; whether we would be caught up in the moment, act based on our feelings, get carried away or act otherwise. We, therefore, have no justifiable excuse, especially when there are many righteous examples to follow and a sweet Spirit to assist us in our daily affairs. Promiscuity is a choice. Therefore, if it has us, it is we who gave it the chance.

    Having a Form of Godliness yet Living in Sin

    “Jesus saw Nathaniel coming towards him, and saith of him, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” John 1:47

    If Jesus looks at us today, can He see us as a person of integrity, in whom there is no guile? Or are we still hiding behind Jesus from the Father, deceiving ourselves that “when God looks at us, He doesn’t see us? He sees Jesus.” Remember, friendship with the world is enmity with God. It’s not that God is so angry that He would destroy us, but Jesus. No! Just as righteousness gives us right standing with God, living in sin gives us a “wrong” standing with God, where we place ourselves as enemies of God. We make ourselves enemies of God and oppose Him when all He wants from us is friendship.

    A life of integrity cannot be lived outside of Christ. In Christ, the only life we can live is a life of integrity. Always remember that.

    You Can Have a Fresh Start

    The most amazing thing about all this is that, when we fall, we have an advocate who lifts us right back up when we repent. Our slates are wiped clean as if we never did it and the sin is never held against us. What more could we have asked for to live uprightly?

    I love you ❤

  • Love One Another

    And now I give you a new commandment: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. John 13:34 GNB

    Romans 5:5 says, “This hope does not disappoint us, for God has poured out his love into our hearts by means of the Holy Spirit, who is God’s gift to us.”

    Someone may ask now; how will I get this Love of God to love people?

    The Love of God is not far-fetched. It has been poured and is continually being poured into our hearts till we love all people with this very love. When someone is giving you a hard time, your prayer shouldn’t be that God should punish them so that they see their offence. Your prayer should be that God should pour more of His Love for them into your heart. The truth is this: brotherly love, romantic love and parental love – they all get tired and wear out eventually. The Love of God is eternal and continually renews within you.

    love one another

    You can only love one another with the Love of God when you have experienced this Love of God for yourself. And no one in the world can say that nobody in this world loves them – though that’s one of the commonest lies the enemy tells us – for we have all tasted of God’s sweet liquid Love. Oh, how sweet! When He pours His liquid Love into my heart; that is the greatest pleasure in the world.

    Whenever we love one another with the Love of God, the Love of God in their hearts reignites too. We cannot love without the Love of God. Whatever we genuinely love, even if it’s a career or hobby, aircraft or reading, we love it with the Love of God. That’s why regardless of what happens to us when we’re doing something we genuinely love with the Love of God, we’re not in despair.

    So I want you to be conscious of all good things. May your consciousness fill up with only thoughts that put a smile on your face. Learn to worship God in your everyday life. Set your affections towards God. Every other thing wears us out, trust me. Loving is effortless. Whenever you find that you’re struggling with Love, pray to the LORD in you. Learn to go on your knees more. Cultivate that habit. It makes your life more refreshed and purposeful. Now you understand when I always end my message with this;

    I love you ❤

  • Falling in Love: How Our Emotions Can Deceive Us

    Falling in Love: How Our Emotions Can Deceive Us

    Emotions are chemical reactions in our body. When you “feel for someone”, that’s an emotional chemical reaction. The problem with emotions is that it changes every 5 seconds. Chemicals are never stable. Love is not emotions. Love is more of a knowing than a feeling. Of course, love can be felt but the feelings of love ought to be the fruit – not the root – of love.

    It takes 8.2 seconds for a guy to fall in love. The average guy has had a crush on dozens of girls. Some he has never met, some he seldom meets, some he often meets, some are twice his age, some are celebrities, some are even married. Some he had a crush on for many years, some just months, some a few days. This is totally natural. So if a guy is obsessed with you, ladies it is nothing new.

    Love is not blind.
    Research has shown that if you have a crush on someone, your brain overlooks their flaws and they tend to appear “perfect”. This seem to look like love but isn’t. Love is intentional not accidental.

    There are two reasons why we have a crush on someone;

    1. Because we seldom meet the person. Thus, the person appears perfect anytime we see them. We crush on them because we desire to have them with us.

    2. Because we always see them. They are usually around so we get intimate. We crush on them because we fear losing them. We have come to understand them and they have become a part of us.

    Reason 1 is responsible for most of the crushes we usually have. We usually have strong unexplainable connections with people we least expect. This is as a result of them being a projection of something we like and/or desire to have in us or with us that we see in them. When we crush on them, we usually want to get to know them more because we really don’t.

    Reason 2 is responsible for shifting the paradigm into a love relationship something that once started as mere friendship. We’d rather spend the rest of our lives with someone we have known and trusted and have come to realise that we’ve fallen in love with than with another who enchants us with their mystery. It is called the mere exposure effect.

    They say, “when you fall in love with two people, choose the second one because if you were in love with the first, you wouldn’t have fallen in love with the second“. That is not necessarily true. You can even love two opposites simultaneously, how much more two people. Once you like someone, there’s a potential of falling in love with them. Sticking to one is not something that comes automatically with love. It is a conscious decision one has to make. Even with that, being in love with someone has never stopped anyone from loving other people. Love is commitment.

    How long a crush lasts is no justification for its authenticity.

    Someone can have a crush on you for years and you may feel the need to reward their persistence. That is pity-love. That will surely not last and may end in a bad fashion. Love is mutual.

    What then do you do when you have a crush on someone you want to have something special and serious with? Cultivate it. Love suffers at high speeds. Love is patient. Once you begin to develop feelings for someone, you are careful not to mess it up. It can easily turn to lust when it is directed in the sexual path rather than being on the empathic path. Get to experientially know the person and understand the different dimensions of the person; intellectually, mentally, spiritually. In this way, the heart, head and hand can fully connect on a whole different level with your crush. Now there’s not only a crush, there’s a bond.

    I love you ❤

  • Fake Friends Leave, True Friends Stay?

    Fake Friends Leave, True Friends Stay?

    Put yourself in this scenario; Imagine you are in an emergency. Think of people you can call. Those are your real friends.

    I used to think this way until I read the exact same idea on the internet. To me, it wasn’t a nice confirmation. It was rather a time of contemplation. There are those who will call me in such a scenario that I can’t call if I find myself in the same scenario. It doesn’t mean we are not friends. We are just not that type of friends. The “scenario” concept is just theoretical. In reality, it’s more complicated than that. It would be therefore detrimental for you to put those who would respond to your emergency in the special category and label all others as fake friends.

    No matter how hard you try, whether you are the most approachable person in your workplace, the funniest guy in the world or the most famous entertainer, we all have a small circle. It’s not small just because there are more people outside it than there are in it. No! It’s small because no matter how hard you try to expand it, it will remain small. The more people you add to your small circle, the more likely some others in the small circle will leave. No one has a small circle of 50 people. The goal is to expand your acquaintance circle. That circle can take everyone in the whole world. Expanding the small circle has a great limitation; it can only hold about a dozen people at a time. This leads us to a major misconception that needs to be tackled;

    MYTH: FAKE FRIENDS LEAVE, TRUE FRIENDS STAY

    Perhaps we’ve all had a “friend” we really thought was our friend till a situation came up. After cutting off the person, we see quotes like these on the internet and we find it so relatable. First of all, no matter how many times the universe is involved, we ultimately choose our friends. We can become acquainted by accident sort of, but no one unintentionally becomes friends with someone by chance. If anything at all, you made an effort to intentionally communicate with the person, which is essential for the growth from just an acquaintance, to being a close friend.

    When someone is in your close circle, there is that feeling of “best friends forever”, “you and I against the world”. Though seemingly unrealistic because we do not know the future, it’s necessary that that phase occurs and y’all live in the moment and enjoy every phase of it.

    The truth is, some people are gonna leave your inner circle with time. Not anything so personal. It’s just that, life happens. Of course, not all your best friends are gonna be best friends with you forever. Y’all became friends at one phase in your life and may move on when another phase sets in. That’s just the way it is. The truth is, once you’ve been friends with someone through the thick and thin, it doesn’t matter if y’all don’t talk or see each other often; in your hearts, y’all are still friends. In fact, such a friend may even die but you can remember them in your heart for the rest of your life. Are they in your inner circle? No. But they used to be. Such people are in what I call the “good friends” zone.

    Am I saying that there’s no such thing as a fake friend? No! All I’m saying is, friends come and go. Real friends. And that is absolutely okay. For some of us, life is gonna take us away from our families and they are gonna leave our inner circle. But they will forever hold a special place in our lives regardless. Truth is, you’re gonna meet your once best friend one day, exchange pleasantries, catch up on the good old times, share memories and then move on. Were they fake friends? No. Not in anyway. We just should’t expect someone to be there for us all the time. It’s beautiful that our journeys criss-cross and we meet people who forever make an impact on our lives, but always remember, we all are on our own individual journeys to our destination. One day, our paths may literally separate us. We should simply know that that path is gonna connect us to many other people who may choose to walk with us as well.

  • Who Am I? Am I Who I Really Am or Who I Think I Am?

    Who am I? Who are you? What are you? Do you know?

    The bride gracefully walked down the aisle in absolute eloquence. There were tears in his eyes as he stole glances at his bride. He couldn’t believe that this day would ever come. Now it’s here. At the altar, they stared into each other’s eyes. They were so much in love: Everything felt so surreal. Nothing could possibly go wrong. It was an atmosphere of ecstatic love. Everyone could see two people getting married but in reality, they were six. Who the bridegroom is, who the bridegroom thinks he is, who the bride thinks the bridegroom is, who the bride is, who the bride thinks she is and who the bridegroom thinks she is.

    Who are you? No, I’m not asking of your name. Who are you? No, I’m not asking of your position. Who are you? No, I didn’t ask what your nationality was. Who are you? No, I didn’t ask what species you belong to. Who are you? No, I didn’t ask what your beliefs are. So you see? “Who am I?” is a question you should be in no hurry to answer. It’s a question that should leave you in deep thought.

    This is the reality of life. If who you are met who you think you are, the two wouldn’t recognize each other. Who others think you are is a different ballgame altogether. We know for sure that who others think we are is obviously different from who we are. But it will shock you to know that who you are is not even who you think you are. It takes a lifetime to fully discover who we really are. At a particular time where you think you’ve actually figured out who you are, you are going to do something that will shock you. It will shake the foundations of the built-up image you have of yourself. Then you’ll question yourself subconsciously for the one-millionth time, “so who am I?”

    Who you are is equally as important as who you think you are. If you know how the universe works, you’ll understand that you’re already who you are. Everything that makes you who you are meant to be is already inside you. Do you understand? Just like the I Am, you are. You Are Who You Are. Who you are is not in the future or in the past. It is yesterday, today and forever.

    Moreover, You Are also Who You Are Not. It is equally important. Not just in the sense that you’re not a liar, thief or murderer. Come to the understanding that you cannot be everything. Some things are just not meant for you. You can only be great in your lane. If you don’t find your lane, you can really struggle. As a matter of fact, Albert Einstein said it better, “Everyone is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid”.

    So if who I am never changes like the “I Am That I Am”, why am I different from who I was in the past? It’s because we live from who we think are, not who we are. That is why who we think we are is equally as important as who we are. It is who you think you are that keeps changing. If you think you’re a failure just because you failed a couple of times, don’t be surprised if you live the life of a failure. The fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree.

    Your goal is to make sure that “who you think you are” is as close to “who you really are” as much as possible. I’m not saying be narcissistic and overlook toxic areas of your life. Do not see yourself bigger than you really are. Rather see yourself become bigger than who you think you are. After all, who you think you are and who you really are will never be the same. We all have blind spots. Some aspects of our lives can be hidden from us for a very long time.

    This is one of the major reasons why people continue to live in the past; they’ve not been able to figure out their reactions and triggers. It’s like we can only understand ourselves when we look back. Our mind uses the past to understand the future. It looks like it’s the only way to understand yourself. Yet, it also means who you think you are is not up-to-date. It’s always stuck in the past. You are who you are right now.

    Even so, today I want you to sit down and write 25 sentences about what you think about yourself. Choose 5 people close to you who give you honest feedback and ask them to tell you 5 different ways of how you’re like. Compare it to who you think you are and see if you’re on the same page. This will give you a fair idea of how you portray yourself and how others perceive you. In addition, you can also ask them how you ought to be from their point of view. Sometimes we limit ourselves as a form of humility when it’s actually pride. Honest feedback can remove blind spots and break down those walls.

    How you live your life is not shaped by who you are, it is shaped by who you think you are. Embrace it and use it to your advantage.

    I love you ❤️

  • Solitude: Why You Should Spend Time With Yourself

    Why are people so much afraid of silence? Perhaps, the emptiness we feel in our immediate surroundings re-echoes the emptiness within us. We’d rather do anything than spend time with ourselves. I’m not talking about isolation. I’m talking about solitude.

    Social media might have given us the biggest audience to showcase whatever we have but this is the time to realize you’re your biggest fan. You need to appreciate your own ingenuity because a time will come when others won’t, yet you have to keep on keeping on.

    We now live in a world where even teenagers think they are busy. Busy doing what, brushing your teeth? There are times in your life that you’d need to self-quarantine. Not just a vacation to enjoy yourself, but a time to reflect. It’s by self-reflecting that we get to appreciate the people in our lives. You don’t have to wait till you lose something before you appreciate it.

    Not spending time with ourselves has become the reason why people are in dire need for people to appreciate and/or agree with them. Low self-esteem. No self-approval. Yet, such a huge ego. Once all the distractions go away and the ego has nothing to feed on, then we can see beyond the fog and above the blindspots. But the distractions barely go away by chance. That’s why it’s necessary to be intentional about this.

    If you don’t want to spend time with yourself, who should? People who don’t like to spend time with themselves have so much insecurities about themselves. It appears every time they are alone. That’s why it’s easier to put so much burden on others around us and have unrealistic expectations for them and yet undermine our abilities in areas we are good at. And funny enough, we begin to think we’re so much better in areas we aren’t that good at, actually.

    It’s only by self-reflection that we practice metacognition. It requires us to relinquish our usual egocentric perspective and examine ourselves from the outside. Ironically, it’s when you don’t spend time alone that you begin to feel lonely. You feel that people aren’t there or won’t be there for you. Don’t expect people to be there for you if you aren’t there for yourself.

    Spending time alone is ultimately thinking about what you think about. Perhaps, boredom will kick in, but boredom is the bedrock of creativity. If you’re not tired of something, why would you want to change it? Great inventions have come out of solitude. Sometimes, there are too many distractions that we don’t even have the time to think stuff through. With solitude comes clarity.

    This season of quarantine has taught us many things, especially things we thought we couldn’t live without. Life is really about the basics. Once life is not built on the basics, it loses its meaning. So now that you have enough time to spend with yourself, do well to fall in love with yourself, tackle your insecurities, and change those habits you don’t like about yourself.

    I love you ❤️

  • Love Yourself: Love Is In The Air, Breathe It All In

    Love Yourself: Love Is In The Air, Breathe It All In

    Love is a constant tangible experience of His outpour of Himself. Love is in the air. We have heard “God loves you” many times, but until it is fruitfully experienced by the sayer, it can never be better expressed to the listener.

    Love is what makes me happy when I have no reason to. Love is one self-motivating effect that never withers. Knowing that I’m loved keeps me going. And it is this same love that picks me up when I fall, that encourages me when I stumble.

    And when I’m tired of life and just feel like giving up on myself, love gives me a reason to live. Simply knowing that I’m loved outrageously fills me up with peace. It puts a smile on my face and a tear in my eye. Such amazing love. Love is so beautiful.

    love is in the air

    Love opens up my heart to all good things. It takes away any subconscious fear. And even though I may not be able to escape being broken in one way or the other, I know love will be there to heal my wounds.

    And every time I think of love, I open my arms wide and close my eyes. I breathe in and I smile. It changes my realities. I feel like I’m top of the mountains. I do not have a single doubt about this love. Love is indeed in the air.

    love You ❤

  • What It Means to Love One Another

    What It Means to Love One Another

    P.S. You don’t have to agree with me on this issue. We live in a system that makes people suspicious when you’re so good to someone and unsurprised when you do them bad. Love has become self-centeredness and people will be quick to take advantage of whatever love you have for them. Loving one another has therefore become culturally irrelevant.

    Loving one another with the Love of God means loving people unconditionally. Regardless of the person’s actions, words and deeds, your love is unrelenting. This is the kind of love that makes everyone know that we are disciples of Jesus (John 13:35). If you can show love to someone who feels unworthy, dirty or hard-hearted, it changes their lives forever.

    You cannot love someone more than you love yourself. Therefore, how you love others can depict how much you love yourself unconditionally. If someone wants to capitalize on your love for them by having you to prove it in any form, they don’t love you unconditionally. Remember, love is not earned. If there’s a reason why you love someone, that’s the condition for your love. Think about it!

    Loving with the Love of God means sacrificing your life for others. Jesus laid His life for us so that we’ll be able to lay down ours for others. This is what He means by losing your life for His sake (Matt 10:39, Matt 16:25, Mark 8:35, Luke 9:24 says the same thing). No matter what we do, our decisions affect other people. Love does not sacrifice others for the sake of oneself. It does not mean sacrificing oneself to the detriment of oneself either.

    There is the need to understand that you CAN lift others up by lifting yourself up. It’s not always that one has to come down for another to go up. Sacrifice is not always a substitution. Most times, it is taking that better alternative. Sacrificing for others simply means taking decisions that not only benefits you but benefits others also.

    Loving one another with the Love of God means seeing the good in people even in their evil. If God could see a great apostle to the Gentiles in a serial killer, why can’t you? Of course, this is not about being optimistic or positive-minded. It is about how you see people. Do you see people as their mistakes? Do you identify them with their flaws? This is a trustworthy saying; you cannot genuinely love someone and not see their true pure state. Love makes us understand that anything bad or evil people emulate is not their true nature. “Love does not rejoice in evil”.

    People are bigger than their shortcomings. How you identify them says more about you than about them.

    If only you could see through God’s eyes for one second and see how He sees them. God has indeed given us His eyes as the Body of Christ. If God can see bravery in Gideon who thought he was the biggest coward in the world, then you can too. If God can see a deliverer in a man who had become an outcast and send Moses back to Egypt and use him mightily, then you can too. But it’s only through God’s eyes.

    We can only love others unconditionally if we love ourselves unconditionally. On the other hand, we cannot love ourselves unconditionally and love others conditionally. It’s impossible! Truth is, we can only love ourselves unconditionally if we accept God’s unconditional love for us.

    God loves you. It’s not a theory. Once you bask in His Love and begin to experience His Love shed abroad in your heart, His Love flows to you through you to others. Therefore, our love for others shows that we love God. We cannot say we love God unconditionally if we don’t love others unconditionally. Unconditional Love is an unbroken chain. And it all begins with accepting God’s Love for you. Understand that God loves you. Love yourself. Love others. Love God.

    I love you ❤