What a massive question. It’s not an easy one either. Not because I don’t believe you should love yourself, but because we may not know what “love” really means in this question. That is the sticky point. That is the point where so much can go wrong.

So let’s get this out of the way.

I believe you should love yourself. I also believe that you are worth loving. And if my opinion of you is not enough, then why, oh why, did Jesus die for you? He doesn’t die for crap. You are not crap. You are not unloveable. Get it! You are so amazing. God made you in His image. When you taste and see that the Lord is good and then confess with your mouth that He is Lord of your life, you are His kid. How dare any of us speak ill of His children.

So this is not the problem with our question today. I know that you are worth loving. But the point that Satan tries to trick us up, and the reason that we have a hard time with the question at hand is more about what love looks like.

Satan loves to distort love. That’s right. Just because it appears like love, or the world says it’s love, it doesn’t make it love.

STOP!

I just want to clarify something for you before you go on. I’m not just writing to everyone that comes across this post. I’m grateful for you, and I believe that all who read this are made in God’s image, so thank you from the bottom of my heart for spending this time with me. I truly love you. But, this is for those of you who love Jesus and want to take Him and your identity development in Him, seriously.

I’m not trying to tell you that you are wonderful so that you simply feel good. I want you to feel wonderful and feel GOD. So this is a body of Christ post. Let’s do a little body building and add some stretching to the routine.

Back at er.

I want you to love yourself. The Bible tells you to love yourself. So now let’s look at love a little more.

Love is pure. It seeks God’s Kingdom first. Not ours. This is the primary problem with our practice of love. The world has watered down love to a feeling, and not a commitment. That’s huge. You must commit to yourself, loving yourself so that you can love others. Your love of yourself is not just for your personal pleasure. Yes, you can enjoy yourself, and after a long journey, I finally can say I love myself and could spend all day with me. But this goes beyond that.

When you love yourself, only for yourself, you have broken the first and greatest commandment. Not only the first commandment of Jesus, but the one we find in the Old Testament.

When you love yourself for yourself, you move from loving to idolizing. That’s right, without Jesus in your love for yourself, you have made yourself god!

Most blogs out there that talk about this issue focus on self-love. This sounds good, but the trick behind it is that they don’t believe you need God to do it.

Without God, self-love is self-worship.

When you put your version of love before the one we find in the Bible, you make yourself god. Don’t make yourself an idol!

So as you go through this journey, remember you are not god. Loving yourself does not mean you give in to all of your desires. It does not mean that simply what comes natural to you is OK for you to fulfill.

Just because it’s natural, it doesn’t mean it’s right!

Take for example, and pardon my bluntness of the topic.
Let’s say a little baby has to go to the bathroom. that’s natural. Do we want to raise up the child that it can go to bathroom wherever it wants? Obviously no, even though it comes natural. We train it up to not only use the bathroom facilities, but to control it’s natural urges for the good of itself and others. Just because it’s natural, doesn’t mean you can do whatever you want. When you act this way and give in to all of your natural urges, you make yourself god.

We must put God first in our equation of loving ourselves.

So here it is… You are so worth loving, but don’t let the world tell you how to love yourself. They only want you to idolize yourself, making you god.

I love to say this,

there are 2 kinds of people in this world, those who believe in God, and those who think they are god. If you love yourself for your own gain, then you think you are god.

To wrap up, I want to share with you this quick picture of the good news that is Jesus Christ.

In all religions except Christianity, you have to devote your life to climbing a mountain to get to god, just to have him look at you, but in Jesus, He love you so much, that He came down the mountain.

Your Assignment.

Look at your life and try to find those things that you have let into your routines that would suggest you are god. Now give them to God as an offering. He doesn’t need your cash, He wants everything in your life that puts you first to be a burnt offering to Him. Give it to Him, and find rest.

Let me know how it goes.

In Christ, and for His glory and our pure love of ourselves,
Dr. Brad