God's Love

Don’t Be Irritable–Love Yourself

November 15, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 1 Comment

(If you’ve stumbled across thist post, let me explain where you are. You have landed smack in the middle of one of my favorite series ever. We started some time ago by learning that God expects us to love ourselves. Now, we’re going through the definition of love in I Corinthians 13:4-7 to help us understand how we can love ourselves in a healthy way so can love others better. Go back to that first post to read the series from the beginning and to find an index of all the posts available. Enjoy today’s post as well.)

Don’t Be Irritable with Yourself

I’m told that anger turned inward is a working definition of depression. Thus, to help ourselves overcome depression, we must learn to relieve that kind of anger. We don’t have to be irritable with ourselves.

Don’t misunerstand. We do things wrong. There are times when anger even at ourselves is justified. But we don’t need to let that anger turn into a simmering, just-below-the-surface irritability.

Irritability is not out and out anger. It is not the clamoring and wrath and explosion. Rather, it is that low-lying frustration we carry with us just below the surface. It is something not easily seen. However, when little things happen, this irritability ignites the flame of clamor, wrath, and explosion. Irritibality is not the flame. Rather, it is more like the pilot light that stays lit all the time so that when the fuel hits it, the fire gets going. If we can remove the pilot light, we can prevent many of the burns.

We are allowed to love ourselves. We don’t have to be continually exasperated, frustrated, or irritated with ourselves. The fact is we all mess up. We all make mistakes. We all sin. We are growing; we aren’t perfect yet. While we must not ignore these sins and we must take them seriously, we do not have to respond with a constant barage of berating ourselves. We do not have to hang on to the irritation.

We need to be comfortable in our own skin instead of always being under our own skin. This means we have to learn to be gentle with ourselves, patient with ourselves, accepting of ourselves.

One of the best ways to remove this irritation is to remember that God is working on us. According to Philippians 2:12-13, God is working in us both to work and to will for His good pleasure. Further, according to Romans 8:28-30, God is working on conforming us to the image of His Son. According to I Peter 5:10, God will restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish us. When we remember that God is working on us, being patient with us, and accepting us where we are while working on our weaknesses, we can do the same.

If God is accepting me right now, I can too. I’m not improving myself or my standing with God by carrying the irritation or berating myself. If you’re like me, there is part of you that thinks you can make up for the sin by ranting and raving at yourself, being really angry at yourself, and not letting yourself live down the sins. That doesn’t work. What works is allowing the blood of Jesus to cleanse your conscience so you can be set free to serve the living God (Hebrews 9:14). If you are carrying irritability, you will simply provoke yourself to the same or different sins.

Please understand, loving yourself does not mean ignoring your sins. Rather, it means dealing with your sins properly. Instead of trying to pay for your sins by your own anger, take your sins to Jesus and let Him pay for them. Let His sacrifice purify you and your conscience, but not so you can just keep sinning whenever you want. Rather, let Him purify your conscience so you may serve the living God.

Don’t live in a fantasy land that says you don’t sin or your sins don’t matter. That simply isn’t true. But neither must you let your sins, mistakes, or weaknesses, push you to continued harshness and exasperation with yourself. Even Paul was gentle with himself about his weaknesses. He said he would boast in his weaknesses rather than be irritated with himself about them. Why? Because his weaknesses were what reminded him he needed God. Without the recognition of his weaknesses, he would not have known how much he needed God (2 Corinthians 12:9-10). He would have been lost on his own way which would have ended in death (Proverbs 14:12).

Yes, you make many mistakes. You are growing; you aren’t perfect. But instead of being irritable, love yourself. God loves you even though you’ve made all those mistakes. You can too.

(Come back next Monday as we learn to love ourselves God’s way instead of resenting ourselves.)

Don’t Be Rude-Love Yourself

August 30, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 1 Comment

Don’t Be Rude, Love Yourself

At first glance, this one seems to be difficult to apply to ourselves. Obviously when we love others we won’t be rude to them. But what does this have to do with how we treat ourselves?

Some translations say love does not behave unseemly or inappropriately. But how does that change our quandary? I really struggled with this until I did some more searching on the web forum I quoted in our very first article. There I learned about one woman who so hated herself that she was looking for love anywhere she could get it. Actually, it wasn’t love. It was her distorted perception of love. She turned to committing sexual immorality with those she described as “dirty OLD men.”

That story could be repeated again and again and again with differing people and different sins. Many times, our sins are simply responses to or attempts to escape from the seemingly overwhelming burden of self-loathing. As we wrongly believe we are worthless, everything that happens to us seems to reinforce that message. Therefore we respond to even minor issues with overwhelming fear, depression, shame, anger. These emotions become chaotic and unbearable so we seek an escape. Along comes our favorite sin to take us out of the reality of our emotions, to numb the feelings. It might be sex, gluttony, drinking alcohol, gambling, drugs, pornography, outbursts of wrath, self-mutilation, or any other number of innappropriate behaviors.

Can you readily see the cyclical dilemma here? Using our sins to numb our feelings may get us out of reality for a few minutes, but once the sin is committed, then we have another reason to see ourselves as worthless. The emotions come back even worse and we need our escape even more strongly. The woman I spoke of above did not feel better about herself, her life, her circumstance after being with those men, she felt worse. But because of the cycle, that only led her to another man, then she felt worse, then another man, then felt worse…

We can break this cycle. We don’t have to behave inappropriately toward ourselves. Instead, we can remember God loves us and therefore love ourselves as He does. We can recognize that the “dirty Old men” don’t love us and we don’t have to give ourselves over to them. Instead, we can put ourselves in God’s hands. We can remember His Son on the cross. We can remember how much He loved us despite all our sins (Romans 5:6-8). We don’t have to view our most recent sins as reasons to run into more sin. Instead, we can view them as reasons to run into God’s loving arms. We can let His love fill us and hold us as we work through the reality of our situation and our feeling.

Being Appropriate

What are some appropriate behaviors when these feelings come crashing on us and we want to turn to our sins for comfort?

1. Pray

Take your feelings to God. Even if your feelings about God. A touchstone passage about this is Psalm 88. God is able to handle your emotions. Cry in His arms. Yell at Him. Rejoice with Him. Whatever is going on, just tell it to Him. Sin doesn’t have to be your rock. God can be.

2. Reaffirm God’s love for you with Scripture

Plan for this right now. Find Bible passages that express God’s love for you. I used Romans 5:6-8 above. Find some others. Learn where the accounts of Christ’s crucifixion are and read those. Remember that this is His sacrifice for you. Remember John 3:16. I don’t normally advocate messing with the text, but in this instance, I encourage you to quote it this way: “For God so loved the world, with me in it, that He gave His only begotten Son…” Or just, “For God so loved me…” Remind yourself that God did all this even when He knew what you would do and how you feel at this very moment.

3. Reaffirm God’s love for you in your life

One of the greatest tools I’ve learned about in helping me overcome fears and depressions is a gratitude list. We sing a song that encourages us to count our many blessings; actually do that. Why not do this right now? Pull out a sheet of paper and make a list of things you are thankful for. Start small. Come up with a list of 5 things. I bet pretty quickly that list will expand to 10, then 20, then 50. Remember James 1:17. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above…” These blessings are from God because He loves you. Acknowledge Him in all your ways and all your gratitude. Recognizing these blessings are great reminders that God is not picking on you. He loves you. If He loved you like this, you can love yourself right now. You don’t have to turn to your sin.

4. Find a friend who will love you healthfully

Perhaps the easiest way to experience God’s love is to experience it in relationship with one of God’s children. I once read that we will likely never accept ourselves until we experience the loving acceptance of who we are from someone else. Find that someone. Find someone you can share everything with who will still love you without shaming you or taking advantage of you. I know this seems a tall order, but there are people like this out there. There are friends who stick closer than a brother (Proverbs 18:24). Some caveats on this. If your friend spends more time lecturing you about how you shouldn’t feel that way, find a different confidante. If your friend wants to take this intimacy to a physical level, find a different confidante (obviously, I’m not talking about hugging and shoulder crying). If your friend shares your secrets, find a different confidante. Find someone who will respect healthy boundaries, who will realize you are opening up because you want to do right, who humbling recognizes their own sinfulness and lack of ability to sit in judgment over you.

5. Sit in your feelings

This is hard. But instead of trying to escape your feelings, sit in them. It isn’t wrong to hurt, be sad, be angry, feel guilt and shame. These are all part of our lives. Instead of thinking you need to mask them, let them be. I know you probably can’t imagine this, but the feelings will pass if you let them run their course. We think that is not the case because they have lingered for so long. The issue is when we repress our feelings or try to escape our feelings, they actually just sit back and wait for an opportune time to come back. However, when we sit in them and figure out how to express them appropriately, they dissipate. Let me offer you a warning if you have continually and repeatedly turned to sins to numb these feelings. When you first try to sit in them they will seem infinitely worse than they ever have before. You’ve been numbing those pains like a surgery patient with a morphine pump. Take the pump away and the pain is amplified. Trust me, this will go away.

6. Identify the feeling and formulate a response

If you have repeatedly turned to sins to escape these feelings, you may not even be aware that you are feeling or what your feeling is. But one of the most appropriate things you can do is identify what is really going on in your heart. The eight core feelings are: gladness, sadness, hurt, anger, fear, shame, guilt, loneliness. Can you pinpoint one of those? Then ask yourself why you are feeling that way? Go beyond just, “So and so said such and such to me.” Ask yourself why their saying that is causing the emotion. For instance, you might say, “My boss didn’t approve my budget proposal for the coming year. He cut out several key parts saying they were frivolous and I should have known better.” But why is that causing you to feel hurt and sadness (if those are your feelings)? You might figure out, “This makes me feel hurt and sad because I believe I have to please everyone all the time to be a worthwhile person.” Now you’ve pinpointed something. You have a faulty belief. You don’t have to please everyone all the time to be a worthwhile person. God loves you just the way you are. God thought you were so worthwhile even though He knew you wouldn’t please your boss with this budget proposal that He sent Jesus to die for you anyway. You don’t need your boss’s approval to be worthwhile. Your appropriate response is to retool your belief about yourself and your relationships.

Or you may discover that you are angry because you saw your boss’s tone of voice and word choice as condescending, disrespectful, even hateful. How can you respond to that? Maybe you can recognize that this tone is your boss’s problem and not yours. Hateful people are so because of their own inner pain. They are trying to compensate for some weakness they see in themselves. Perhaps a good response for you is to feel compassion and sympathy for your boss’s pain and pray for him to find comfort in God for that pain. Or you may decide you need to express to your boss how that tone impacts you and establish a boundary. “Mr. Boss, I am very happy for the opportunity I have to work with you and for this company, but something has been bothering me and I think it will negatively impact my performance and production for you if I don’t talk to you about it. When would be a good time for us to talk about that?…When you critique me and use words like ‘frivolous’ and claim ‘I should have known better,’ that seems to be a condescending judgment against my motives. I want what is best for our company. This makes me fear for my job and question whether or not you approve of me working here…” Or that last sentence may have been about boundaries, “When you speak to me in that tone it seems to me that you are treating me more like a servant than an employee as if you are questioning my very worth as a worker in this company. I definitely want to hear what will help me be a better employee for you, but I’d like to have a boundary that says we both speak to each other with respect, even when we disagree with each other.”

Okay, this section is getting long and we could go on and on with numerous variables. But I hope you see the point. When you press pause, examine what you are feeling and why, then formulate an appropriate response, you’ll be amazed to see that you didn’t need the sin to deal with this at all.

The point is you do have healthy options. You don’t have to behave rudely to yourself (and you don’t have to put up with rude behavior from others). You don’t have to be inappropriate with yourself (and you don’t have to put up with inappropriate behavior from others). You don’t have to turn to your sin. Turn to God. Turn to His love. Let His love fill you. Love yourself as He loves you. Then you will be free to love others.

God loves you today. Love yourself today.

(Remember to come back next Monday and we’ll learn that love does not insist on its own way.)

Be Patient with Yourself, Love Yourself

May 4, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 7 Comments

A few weeks ago, we started looking at God’s love for us and noted that if God loves us, we are allowed to love ourselves. In fact, we noted from Matthew 22:39, that God didn’t command us to do this, He simply expected it.

The problem, of course, is we have been so warned against self-centeredness that hearing this shocks us a bit. We aren’t allowed to love ourselves, we think, because that is narcissism. That would be selfish. Besides, II Timothy 3:2 warns that the sinners of this age will be lovers of self. Clearly, there is a way in which we are allowed to love ourselves and a way in which we aren’t. I think the best explanation of how to love ourselves biblically can be found in I Corinthians 13:4-7. If we pursue God’s definition of love for others, and are supposed to love them as we do ourselves, then this will help us love ourselves properly.

Love Is Patient

The first thing Paul said is, “Love is patient.”

Be patient with yourself. If you’re like me, you are a mess. You don’t want anyone else to know it and you do your best to put on a great face so no one else will ever know it, but you know exactly what a mess you are. You know every flaw, every mistake, every failure, every sin. In fact, you know the little bitty things that no one else would recognize as bad, but you know for you it is.

With every mistake, you can begin to beat yourself up, shame yourself, throw your hands in the air and claim there just isn’t any reason to keep going on. “Why bother,” you tell yourself, “I’m never going to make it.”

But love is patient. Be patient with yourself. God is patient with you. II Peter 3:9 says the Lord is not slow about His promises, He is simply patient, not wishing any of us to perish. A few verses later, he says we should count this patience as our salvation (II Peter 3:15). God is waiting on us.

However, there is an even better reason to be patient with yourself than simply God is patient with you.

God is Working On You

Not only is God waiting on us, God is working on us. Philippians 2:12-13 encourages us to keep working on ourselves, not because we are doing such a great job, not because we are perfect, not because we make no mistakes. We should keep working on ourselves because God is working on us and in us.

Romans 8:28-30 explains that God is going to bring us to conformity with Jesus. He is working on us and He will get us there. When we mess up, there is no need to throw our hands up and quit. Rather, be patient. God is working on us. We just need to keep working.

Let’s face it, we are all like toddlers struggling to walk in a manner worthy of Jesus Christ. As we start to pull up on the furniture, we are going to fall. We may even fall a lot. However, eventually, just as sure as little children eventually learn how to walk, we will to. Not because we’re such great walkers, but because we aren’t alone. God is holding our hand.

Even after we’ve been walking for a while, we may have a big fall. In fact, just this morning, I fell down the stairs (again). However, God is still working on us. He still loves us and is patient with us. We can be patient with ourselves as well.

Patient, not Permissive

Now, please don’t misunderstand. Romans 6:1-2 says, “Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means!” Being patient with ourselves when we sin, doesn’t mean we are granted permission to sin. God’s patience with us is not a license to sin. Neither should our own patience be.

The point is simply that since we are growing and are not perfect yet (Philippians 3:12), we will stumble and fall. When we do, patience doesn’t tell us not to care and just stay on the ground wallowing in the mud. Patience says to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off, pick up our cross and keep walking. Or rather, it tells us to let God pick us up, clean us off, give us our cross, and keep walking with Him.

I don’t know what has been happening in your life. I don’t know what struggles you have or what failures you’ve made. All I know is this, if you love God, He is working on you. Be patient with Him. Be patient with yourself. Love is patient. Why not love yourself today, cut yourself some slack. Be patient. You’ll make it. God has promised you will.

Come back next week, we’ll learn about being kind to ourselves.

We Don’t Have to Earn God’s Love

April 26, 2010 by Edwin Crozier Leave a Comment

A few weeks ago, we started what I think is an extremely important and yet misunderstood topic: Loving Ourselves. We are allowed to do that. Two weeks ago, we noticed that as unlovable as we may see ourselves, we need to simply trust God who looks at us and loves us.

Having heard that God really does love us, we can easily start running through the mental gymnastics of the devil as he tries to convince us that God does not love us, in fact could not love us because we are so bad. With that mindset, we often start trying to earn God’s love. We decide that in order to get God to love us we need to read our Bibles more, pray more, sin less, teach more, attend congregational assemblies more, and on and on the list may go. We seem to think that if we make ourselves better, then we might become worthy of God’s love.

I John 4:7-9 says, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.”

Consider what this says. That love of God is not based on anything we do. God doesn’t love us because of anything we’ve done, but because He is love. That means God won’t stop loving us because of anything we do, because He is love. He manifested that love eternally by sending His Son to die for us. He died for us even while we were sinners and doing nothing worthy of that love.

What does that mean for us? It means there is not one single thing we can do today to make God love us any more. At the same time, it means there is not one single thing we can do today to make God love us any less. We don’t have to try to earn it. We don’t have to fear losing that love.

Once we recognize that, how can we not love God ourselves? Because of that love we will want to draw closer to Him through Bible reading, prayer, spending time with God’s children, avoiding sin, etc. If we do sin, we can recognize God still loves us and instead of running from God, we can run to God, confessing our sin and accepting the forgiveness He has promised.

If God would love us like this despite all we’ve done, we can love us too.

Keep coming back. Next week, we’ll start looking at I Corinthians 13:4-7 to see what it means to love ourselves properly according to God’s will.

God Loves You Today, So Should You

April 12, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 2 Comments

Last Monday, I introduced a topic about loving ourselves. That doesn’t seem to be as hot of a topic as what I’ve said about Christians and politics, but I think it is a great deal more needed.

Even having seen a biblical basis for loving ourselves, we can still believe we are just unlovable. Sure, you may think I’m a cuddly sort of fellow. I’m nice enough. I’ve probably usually spoken to you with kindness. But if you actually knew me. If I laid out my history before you, you’d run screaming. If I told you some of the things that have been in my head, you would flee, flapping your arms about your head trying to ward off the craziness. The problem is, I do know me. I know what I’ve thought about. I know what I’ve done. Regrettably, I can’t run away from it. It’s always with me.

Do you know that same feeling?

I can’t speak for everyone else in the world. I don’t know what everyone else would do if they learned about who you really are when the masks come off. But I can share with you what God said. God knew your entire history. God knows every thought you’ve ever had. God knew every mistake, every failure, every sin. He knew every lie. He knew every lust. He knew every theft. He knew every immorality. He knew every covetousness. He knew every arrogance. He knew every judgment. He knew every hurt. He knew every betrayal. He knew it all. There is not one thing you have kept hidden from Him. He knew it all before you were even here.

Do you know what He did even though He knew every bit of that? He loved you. He looked at you and said, “There is someone I can love.” And He sent Jesus to die for you so you might be forgiven and set free from all that wrong. Romans 5:6-8 says, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person–though perhaps for a good person one would are even to die–but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

So, before you start hating on yourself today, stop and think about what God did for you even though He knew everything you did. If God can love you, then you must be pretty lovable. Why not love yourself too?

[EDIT] As per Michelle’s request: A Link to my sermon entitled “Worth a Son”

Thanks for the suggestion, Michelle.

Love Yourself Today

April 5, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 10 Comments

Index of “Loving Ourselves” Posts

God Loves You Today, So Should You

We Don’t Have to Earn God’s Love

Be Patient With Yourself

Be Kind to Yourself

Nourish and Cherish Yourself

Do Not Envy

Do Not Boast or Be Arrogant

Don’t Be Rude to Yourself

Don’t Insist On Your Own Way

Don’t Be Irritable With Yourself

Don’t Resent Yourself

Rejoice in Truth, not Wrong-doing

Bear and Endure All Things

Believe and Hope All Things

Hating Ourselves

A man, supposedly in his late 40s posted the following in an internet forum that I do not want to link you to.

“I hate what I see in the mirror. I hate my past. I hate my present. I hate everything I am. I go to bed every night wishing I would wakeup with some disease and only have a few months to live. Or that I would die on the way to work in a car wreck or have a massive heart attack. That would show them wouldn’t it. Would anyone really care if I was gone? I walk around feeling empty inside and nobody notices. Why can’t anyone see how sad I am? Can’t anyone see how much pain I am in? Can’t anyone see me struggling to stay alive? I hate myself even more for having these thoughts. How weak is that? Why can’t I be a real man and get over it? I ask myself if this is a cruel joke God is playing on me? Is this payback for all the bad I had done in my life? Why am I here? I am so pathetic and such a loser.”

The responses he received were not much better.

“You and me both. I know how you feel. Every day I wake up hoping to die. I’ve been through a lot … in my lifetime. Most of the time, I don’t see what the point of living is. At university, everyone ignores me. No one cares about me. Most of my family hate me. I have no friends…I’m not even my won friend.”

“I know there are people who love me, but it doesn’t make a difference to me. I feel like you. I’m a loser.”

“Bro, I feel so close to you. I hate myself and I hate myself that I hate myself in the same time. I don’t know how to feel or what to feel. Sometime I blame life and gods but then I hate myself that I should just blame myself. I hate myself more than I hate this meanless life. I hate my boring look, my stupid brain, my weak body, and my ugly mouth that always say the wrong things.”

“I go through life pretending I am so happy, but if anyone even cared they’d look deeper. And even though I am female, I totally understand how you feel. They all say life is a rollercoaster, but it feels like it is only going down and down further each day.”

Someone finally posted:

GOD LOVES YOU! Nothing is more important than that.

To which the next responder replied:

“I wish I could believe in that premise, but I’m finding it hard these days. I have failed at everything I’ve ever done and tried. At the same time, I’ve done nothing wrong. I’ve been a hard-working blue collar guy all of my life. I’ve never broken a law or hurt anyone. Now, at 47, laid off from my job nearly a year, a wife of 19 years who looks at me like a loser. No kids. Little savings. The only thing I truly love are my two dogs who are always faithful.

“I look back and conclude that my life has been pointless. Utterly meaningless. I hate myself so much, that I love my own honesty about it.

“I hate myself so much that I pray for death. I am a 30-year smoker and am happy about it. Lung cancer, colon cancer, a massive coronary all sound good to me. I’ll take any of them. Then I can go down for the long sleep and all of this…would be over. No more worries. No more insomnia or nightmares. Not another morning waking to nothingness. Worthlessness. Pain.

“The only reason I haven’t put a bullet thru my head is because of the last remaining shred of Christianity, that suicide is the ultimate sin from which there is no forgiveness. So, I’m finding it harder to believe that God is here, or cares. I have sinned like all humans on this planet and regret them all. But, if he’s there, he’s forsaken me. I guess I don’t blame him. I would too if I were him.”

Self-loathing and self-hatred: Some of us have it down to a science. Some of us are even convinced we are more spiritual because of our negative feelings toward ourselves. We are sure that any kind of love we have for ourselves would only be selfishness, self-centeredness, arrogance. We are sure that any kind of love we might have for ourselves would mean we weren’t seeing ourselves in the sinful light we are sure we must recognize. I’d like to share a Biblical revelation with you. We are allowed to love ourselves.

Some hearing this will think this is no big deal and wonder why I’m even sharing such depressing stuff. Others are saying they know how these people online feel and want to find out where this stuff came from. They are saying, “Are you sure? Are you sure I’m allowed to love myself? If you knew me like I do, you wouldn’t be saying that.” I’m talking to you. God says you are allowed to love yourself.

Why do Christians Struggle with Self-Loathing?

For those who don’t understand, here’s the problem. Some look at their sins and equate their existence with their sinfulness. They don’t just despise their sins; they despise themselves for their sins. I understand that. With each new sin, no matter how small or great, we receive another reminder of how worthless and unlovable we are.

Some look at their bodies. They see themselves as too thin or too fat, too tall or too short, too plain, too out of proportion, maybe their ears are too big or their chin is too small. They equate their body with themselves and hate themselves a little more every time they look in the mirror. As an overweight guy, I can understand that too.

Some listen to the negative messages they’ve heard from parents, professors, and peers: “You’re never going to amount to anything.” “You’re so pathetic.” “You’re a loser.” “You’re worthless.” “I don’t even know why I had you.” “I don’t even know why they let you in this school.” “I don’t even know why I’m friends with you.” “You’re the worst __________.”

Some want to be perfect and every mistake adds another level of loathing. Each failure reinforces the messages they heard from others and they play those messages over and over again in their heads. I haven’t heard all these, but I’ve heard some things. I understand this.

Some look at how they’ve treated others and the mistakes they’ve made in relationships. Every time they see someone they’ve hurt, they heap punishment on themselves. How could the one they’ve hurt love them; how can they love themselves? I wish this one didn’t ring so true. But I get it.

Then, they “go to church” and see everyone wearing their Sunday smiles, and hate themselves a little more for not being strong and perfect like everyone else. You ought to try being the guy who looks out over the whole audience each week to see what appear to be a whole bunch of people who have it together. It’s a weekly reminder of, “Why on earth am I the guy up here preaching?”

For you, “hate” and “loathe” may be too strong of terms. But how do you talk to yourself? Do you call yourself names? “Idiot,” “Loser,” “Moron.” Do you talk down to yourself? “If you had half a brain, you wouldn’t make mistakes like this.” “You’re such a ______, no wonder nobody likes you.” Do you punish yourself over and over again? “I don’t deserve to have a relationship, I’ll sabotage this one.” “I don’t deserve to be thin, I’m going to eat two extra helpings of ice cream.” “I don’t deserve to be pretty, I’ll go out in my rattiest clothes and refuse to try to look nice.” If you treated someone else the way you treat yourself, would they mistake it for love? Maybe your feelings aren’t as dark as those shared at the beginning of this post, but are you treating yourself the way God wants you to?

I know the struggle with these feelings. I like to say that “hate” and “loathe” are too strong of terms for how I’ve felt about myself. Maybe they are. But I can guarantee you that when I talk to others the way I talk to myself about mistakes, value, life in general, no one would mistake it for love. If I talk to my wife the way I talk to myself, she would not think I was loving her. In fact, she probably would think I hate her. If I talk to my kids the way I talk to myself most of the time, they’d end up in therapy (that may happen anyway). I get it.

I’m even one of those people who likes to tell myself this is how I’m supposed to treat me because it is really spiritual. I should despise me for my sins and imperfections. That means I have a realistic self-image based on the Bible. After all, the Bible rebukes all the sins I’ve committed and says I deserve judgment for what I’ve done. I should not like me. If I like me, that means I like the sins I’ve committed. I don’t do as some, flagellating themselves with whips and hurting themselves physically (based on a misunderstanding of I Corinthias 9:27). But verbally and mentally I’ve been there. You should hear the names I call myself when I simply make a wrong turn. If I said that to someone else, folks would be scandalized.

Loving Ourselves

But then I reread Matthew 22:37-40. The two greatest commandments are, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” The second is very similar, Jesus said, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

I’ve read these commands before. I’ve been in classes about them. I’ve preached sermons about them. But on a gut, emotional, core value level, I missed something about these verses. There are two commands about love, but there is a third statement about love within them. It is not a command because it is simply assumed. We are supposed to love our neighbors as we love ourselves.

Do not miss the profound nature of this. Not only are we allowed to love ourselves, we are supposed to love ourselves. Loving ourselves is the foundation for loving others properly. If we despise ourselves, loathe ourselves, and hate ourselves, we will not be able to love others properly or in a healthy way.

The sad reality is too many of us do love others exactly the way we love ourselves, we hate ourselves so we hate others. Maybe “hate” is too strong of a word in this case too. But I think of my statements above about talking to my wife and children. There I said, “if.” I should actually say, “when.” Because I have talked to them these ways. However, as I’ve grown, I’ve discovered that when I talk to others this way, almost without fail I’m not really angry at others. I’m angry at me. The self-loathing simply wells up inside and despite my best efforts to control it seeps forth like too much jello in a mold. My experience is most of my outbursts at others are actually outbursts at myself directed outwardly. It is as if some part of me wants them to feel about me the way I do in that moment and so I’ll sabotage the relationship so they can punish me as I’m sure I deserve. Or these outbursts are attempts to be able to shift my own gaze on to someone else so I can convince myself that they are really the bad one and I can think better of me.

Though I don’t need personal experience to know what Jesus says is true, I have seen my own experience support what Jesus says here. We have to love ourselves properly before we’ll love others properly. When I am most hateful with myself, that is when I’m most hateful with others.

Look again at what Jesus said. “You shall love your neighbor as you love yourself.” Not only are we allowed to love ourselves and supposed to love ourselves, these verses demonstrates that God expects us to love ourselves. Jesus didn’t command loving ourselves, He simply assumed we would.

If you’re like me, hearing this for the first time, you are probably raising all kinds of objections. “What? This sounds like narcissism to me. This sounds like selfishness and self-centeredness.” Of course God doesn’t condone narcissism. I’m not saying we are allowed to be obsessed with ourselves. Of course God doesn’t allow selfishness and self-centeredness. I’m not saying God allows us to hate others while we focus on ourselves. However, there is no getting around it. God assumes that we’ll love ourselves. In fact, He has said this not once, but twice. In Ephesians 5:28-29, Paul says husbands should love their wives as they love themselves, nourishing and cherishing them. Again, he didn’t command the love of self. He simply assumed it.

More to Come

Over the next few weeks, I want to delve into this topic. I want to explore it because I need to. I think many readers here need this as well. I want to begin by looking at God’s love for us and then examine I Corinthians 13 and how it applies to loving ourselves. That will help us get a good grasp on what we would actually do if we were to love ourselves. I hope this series lifts you up, draws you closer to God, and helps you find your worth in your relationship with God not your own personal accomplishments.

If you are willing, we’d love to hear from you on here about your own struggles or questions about this issue. That will help me know the direction to take these posts.

For right now, let me simply reiterate the message of the picture at the beginning of this post. Feel free to love yourself today.

Check out the next installment in this series here.

By the way, if you would like to check out a sermon I presented on this topic, go here.