soma said:
I think the choices you have made is the way you view yourself. You love or trust yourself to make the right choices and if you fear God you are afraid of the bad choices your have or will make.
Love your neighbor as yourself. If you don't love your neighbor you don't love yourself and vice a verse a.
Not entirely true for everyone.... in my case, I don't fear God for the consequences of the bad choices I make and will make. After all, I am learning to trust Him to keep on forgiving me and forgiving me. My "fear" is as someone already described - to stand (or bow down) in awe of His power. It's also to stand in reverence of His mercy and capacity to forgive a complete failure like me, even though I deserve to burn in hell for all the sins I have committed and no matter how hard I try, will commit in the future.
It's amazing to me not only the power He has to part waters or stir up a hurricane, but also to create an Earth that's just the right distance from the sun to support life. With just the right tilt on it's axis and just the right speed of rotation and just the right atmosphere to provide a climate that's survivable. Not to mention the creatures that live on this Earth and depend on each other to survive (i.e. the "food chain" and the many symbiotic and parasitic relationships that occur) - that can breath the air and use the Oxygen and produce the carbon dioxide to help out the plants that in turn use it along with little proton particles from the sun to produce the oxygen needed for us air breathers to survive. Then there's the creatures that live in the water.... they too need Oxygen to live and have been made to be able to use the little amount available in the water. I just cannot fathom that this all came about by some random even a gazillion (or whatever) years ago.... and that's after all the classes I had to take to get my Biological Sciences degree! The more I studied the less I could believe there is no God
After some of the "impossible" miracles I've seen, I am learning to trust Him. As for how I view myself.... well... my user name says it all..... No matter how hard I try to make the "right" choices, it seems I fail a lot.
As for loving my neighbor as myself... if I did that, I would be hateful of my neighbors. Instead, I *try* to love my neighbors as God loves me. Again, I fall far, far short... but I do try to at least help out where I can