Self-Love?

“We love because he first loved us.” 1 John 4:19 (NIV).

The words “loving yourself” and “self-care” are buzz words in the mental health field. Some people even go so far as to say that it is impossible to love others without loving ourselves first. But it’s often a struggle to know how to do this practically.

From a Biblical perspective, in Mark 12:29-31, we see Jesus stating that the first most important commandment is to love God with all of our heart, soul and strength, and the second is to love our neighbour as ourselves. In the second commandment, God sneaks into this idea of loving ourselves alongside loving others. For some of us, loving ourselves comes naturally and effortlessly. But for some of us, the hardest person to love and accept is the person staring back at us in the mirror. We see ourselves through the lens of all our flaws, mistakes, shortcomings, messy past and brokenness. We listen to and believe the voices that disqualify us. For some of us, we are our worst enemy, and we make our spiritual enemy’s job to destroy us so much easier by coming into agreement with him.

Not loving ourselves can masquerade as being humble or selfless, but at its worst, it is nothing less than a stronghold for our spiritual enemy to wage war against us and steal what should be ours. Peace and joy are robbed, relationships broken, opportunities missed fear reigns. From a psychological perspective, when we are unloving towards ourselves, our thoughts towards ourselves become very critical and harsh. We call this having a “critical inner voice.” This can lead to depression and even suicidal thoughts; in fact, neither of these two can exist without an extremely critical inner voice. To quote C.S. Lewis, “all your life long you are slowly turning […] into a heavenly creature or a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be one kind of creature is heaven: it is joy, peace, knowledge, and power. To be the other kind means rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state of the other.”

But if this is you, there is so much hope! Jesus tells us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Matt 5:44 (NIV) We often hear it applied to others, but it is easily applied to ourselves as well. Loving and praying for an enemy never come naturally or easily. However, we find freedom and peace from anger, resentment, and bitterness when we intentionally do it. Intentionally being patient, kind, and honouring towards ourselves even when we don’t deserve it and do not keep records of our wrongs (1 Cor 13: 4-5) can bring incredible healing and restoration in our lives.

In the same way that being unloving towards ourselves makes our spiritual enemy’s job easier, being intentionally loving towards ourselves opens the door to what God wants to do in our lives. When God is at work in our lives, we start producing what the Bible calls “the fruit of the Spirit.” It’s simply the outcome or effect of God in our lives. And the very first fruit of the Spirit is love (Gal 5:22). In fact, 1 John 4:8 (NIV) tells us: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.” Nicky Gumbel suggests the idea that each of the following fruit of the Spirit listed in the Bible is “love in action.” For example, “joy is love rejoicing, peace is love at rest, patience is love waiting, kindness is loving interacting, [etc.].” In other words, love is the first and most important sign of God at work in you and me.

Sometimes, it takes some intentionality and effort to allow the overflow of God’s love to be applied to ourselves. But true gifts are freely given and received, never earned—fortunately, the words “if you measure up” do not apply here.

Heavenly Father, we thank you for lavishing your perfect and unconditional love on all of us without any exceptions or strings attached. We thank you that you have wonderfully made us in your image even when we don’t see it or feel it. Help us to practice love and become extremely skillful at it. Teach us a masterclass on love in all its forms, including loving ourselves. Help us to love and be in harmony with you, our neighbours and ourselves, especially when it’s tough and it doesn’t come easily. Help us to choose love, always. In Jesus’ name, amen.