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The most important person to you in your life is you. And the most important person to me in my life is me. No matter how much you love someone else, you can never love them more than you love yourself. You can maybe get to the point of loving someone as much as you love yourself but never more. Sure, we can sacrifice for others and even give our own lives for theirs, but that doesn't mean you love them more than yourself, you just love them equally and see that value in them. The only people that don't fall in this category are people with extremely low self-esteem issues where they view others in an exaggerated positive light, people with disabilities and/or mental illnesses. For the rest of us, it's all about me.

So why is that? What makes you so great that you are number one? I have struggled my whole life with pride and I plan to write about it in the future but for now I continue to struggle because I think I'm so dang great. Even in my ministry, I never cease to amaze myself at all I'm doing and all the good I'm doing for God and others. It's not about God, it's about me. Every time I catch myself doing this I can do nothing but shake my head. There's an old saying in Korea that everyone's arm folds in. Meaning, that we take care of ourselves before others and we're all selfish beings. I can take negativity, criticism, insults and even physical harm but what hurts me the most is hitting my pride. I will hang on to my pride to the very end. I will never let that go because my pride is who I am. I'm all about me.

I recently came across a situation where I needed to defend myself, my actions and my words. If I don't people would think poorly of me, thus hindering their trust in me as a minister and as a person. This would in turn affect our relationship. But just as I was about to defend myself, I realized what that would mean for the people accusing me of wrongdoing. It would mean that I would be putting them under the bus and portraying them in a negative light, no matter how true my statements are. I looked to the cross and the silence of Jesus amidst his trial: silence. My lips sealed and I dared not utter a word against another. I couldn't I because I knew why I really wanted to rebuttal. I wanted to hurt them as much as they were hurting me. And that's because I'm all about me. But I can't and I won't.

The Bible teaches love for God and others. Not ourselves. We are constantly told to die to ourselves, our temptations, our desires, our lusts and our sins. We die to gain. This is the process in which we become our true selves. Loving God and loving others. So here's the lesson that is to be learned here; you are not number one or number two, in fact you don't even rank in the list of important people in your life. That's what makes sacrifice possible. So stop viewing yourself, as I do, as a figure above all others but rather invest your life in this command:

John 13:34-35

“A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”