We might be forgiven, if we did not know better. I have often heard the comment that so-and-so believes such-and-such, or even worse that so-and-so believed such-and-such. Who really knows what they believe when, or what someone else believed when.History shows that it is best to keep your true beliefs well hidden, and most, perhaps, all people do. The consequences of revealing to the public what you truly believe are enormous. The results are greater than what most people can endure. So it is that many people hide away their true beliefs well within their brain.
You would think that this would be enough to save them from condemnation by others. The reality is very different. One of the truly revolutionary ideas of Jesus of Nasareth and the simple message of Christian teaching was that it did not matter that you believed something that was not part of the existing creed of what you were supposed to believe. The historical Christ took it upon himself to announce that you need not believe in all the mumbo jumbo of what the church of the time was trying to tell you. He was a revolutionary in the art of inner vision and freedom from guilt.
Jesus proclaimed that all you had to have was faith in yourself and that the love you nurtured for yourself would transend all other beliefs and habits. Once you loved yourself, he declared, it is possible to love others. He realized that creating an inner vision of love for oneself rather than fear for what others thought or might do, would transform the way people conducted their daily lives. The results would bring about a world that had respect and purpose. Jesus the man saw that it was possible to create a world in which there was joy and happiness. Jesus the man never said that he was special, but that he had a message of love and a method of building self respect that would lead to joy and happiness, an inner and outer vision, a challenge for the whole community.
So that is how the sermon on the mount stated that all you had to do to be loved was to love yourself, have respect for yourself. Then, with the love that you have for yourself, do unto others what you would do for yourself. What challenges us always is this inner vision that we have of ourselves.
It is very difficult to love another person, if you don't have enough love to respect yourself. Once you lose personal self respect, you lose almost everything that gives joy. If you do not experience joy, then you need to think about your inner vision and how you may change the way you regard or treat yourself. To repair a poor self image, you can follow a simple rule.
The rule that will repair and heal your self image is that of doing something for another person that respects that other person's integrity and self image. By taking that step of helping another person regain their dignity or build their self image, you heal your own self image. This is because to consider another first requires that you change to a giver rather than a taker. The self image of a giver is always higher than that of a taker. This is the challenge of our inner vision.