loving ourselves

The 10 Ways Forgiving Yourself Impacts Your Life

April 7, 2011 by Edwin Crozier 8 Comments

I received a heart-rending letter this week from a brother who is suffering the earthly consequences of his heinous sins. He had heard a sermon I preached entitled “We are Allowed to Love Ourselves.” You may remember the series on this very topic that I wrote on this blog. The brother wanted to know how he could ever forgive himself. Having committed some heinous sins myself, I want to know the same thing. What does it mean to forgive ourselves? Should we forgive ourselves? How can we?

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Believe and Hope All Things–Love Yourself

January 10, 2011 by Edwin Crozier 1 Comment

(If you’ve stumbled across this 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.)

Believe and Hope All Things

When we live in fear and self-hatred, the future looks dim and dark. We look ahead and see nothing but dismal failure. Why would anything good happen to us? We are pathetic and pitiful. We don’t love ourselves, we can’t imagine that anyone else could, even God. So why would good things ever happen to us. We can begin to rewrite even the blessings of the past to imagine that God has completely abandoned us. How much worse will this be if, as happens in life, some bad things really have happened to us. I can’t help but think of Job here. In the midst of his suffering, he couldn’t imagine a bright future at all.

In this state, we are certain that we are worthy of nothing good. Why then would God allow something good to happen to us or for us?Why would anyone else bestow much good on us? Why should we even seek anything good? We begin to catastrophize and awfullize our future. We play a video tape in our head that says everything is going to be bad. The very sad part about this is when we believe this, we live like it, and most often we cause the very things we fear.

As we wrap up this look at healthy love, we need to understand that God does love us. We are allowed to love ourselves. We are allowed to believe all things and hope all things. We are allowed to believe in our own worth. After all, God believes we are valuable. He thinks we are so important He has numbered our hairs. Not a single hair falls out that God doesn’t notice (cf. Luke 12:6-7). If God thinks we are that valuable, we can rest our own sense of worth in our relationship with Him.

We can look to the future and see good things. Matthew 7:7-11 explains that God does in fact want to bless us with good gifts. He refuses to give us serpents and stones. He wants to give us fish and bread. He wants us to have His great blessings. No, this doesn’t mean nothing we deem bad will ever happen to us. But it does mean that we know God will carry us through it all and use it all to bring us out on the other side. We know that because we love God and He loves us, He will use all things to bring about our ultimate good (Romans 8:28-30). We don’t have to view the “bad” things that happen to us as our lot in life or the limit of our coming experiences. Rather, we can see them as stepping stones that God will use to accomplish our own glorification.

You are God’s beloved child. He loves you. Love yourself. Then love others. Believe that good is coming. Hope for the best. Then pursue it by the grace of God who loves you.

God loves you. I love you. Why not let you love you.

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I hope this series has been a blessing in your life. If so, please make sure to share it with others. Click one of the links in the “Share and Enjoy” section below to pass it on to your friends.

If you read this post and found it helpful, make sure to check out the whole series. You can start here.

Bear and Endure All Things–Love Yourself

January 3, 2011 by Edwin Crozier 1 Comment

Bear and Endure All Things

Life is tough. We go through hard times. Things don’t always go the way we want. We don’t always go the way we want. A healthy love of self understands that we aren’t the sum total of what happens to us. We understand that we aren’t our circumstances. We don’t rest our value on what happens to us or what hand of cards life seems to have dealt us. Rather, we understand that whatever is happening today is something that God has prepared us for and will graciously carry us through.

When we don’t love ourselves properly, we may get so discouraged by where we are or what we’ve done that we decide to give up. This might be simply an emotional decision that simply causes us to check out emotionally and mentally, giving up on life and simply drifting along in varying states of despair or elation depending on whatever is going on at the moment. However, this can also take a more horrific turn. Some have so finally given up that they even ended their own lives. This is definitely not loving ourselves healthfully and clearly isn’t loving anyone else properly either.

When we love ourselves in a godly way, we recognize that whatever is going on, we can bear and endure. We can live with the motto, this too shall pass. And we can keep resolutely walking with our hand in God’s.

Think about Peter as he was sinking beneath the waves. He could have given up in despair, looking at the hopelessness of his situation. Or he could put his faith in Jesus and cry out to Him. We know what Peter did. We can do the same no matter what happens to us or what mistakes we’ve made. We can bear up and endure crying out to God for the help we need to make it.

Always remember the words of Paul in Philippians 4:13. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. We can, therefore, bear and endure all things through Christ who strengthens us. We do need to give up. We don’t need to check out. We don’t need to end it all. We can love ourselves by putting one foot in front of the other and continuing to glorify God.

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Come back next week for our final installment in this series. When we love ourselves in a godly way, we will believe and hope for all things.

Rejoice in Truth, not Wrong-doing–Love Yourself

December 20, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 2 Comments

Rejoice in Truth, Not Wrong-doing

According to I Corinthians 13:6, love does not rejoice in wrong-doing, but in truth. But how does that apply to loving ourselves in a healthy way? I think Romans 1:18 and 2:8 help us understand.

“For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth” (Romans 1:18).

“…but for those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth, but obey unrighteousness, there will be wrath and fury” (Romans 2:8).

These passages demonstrate two different standards by which we can live. We can either live by the truth or we can live in unrighteousness (the same word as is translated “wrong-doing” in I Corinthians 13:6). It seems odd to see truth contrasted with wrong-doing. We would expect truth to be contrasted with lies or wrong-doing contrasted with right-doing. The point is that following truth leads to doing what is right and wrong-doing comes from following lies.

Satan is a liar. He doesn’t get us to do wrong by telling us the truth about the wrong. He doesn’t get us to commit adultery by telling us how awful the consequences will be–destroyed marriages, destroyed families, lost jobs, loss of trust, guilt, shame. No. He tells us how fun it will be. He tries to convince us it will be fulfilling and meaningful. We’ll get from the adulterous relationship what we are not getting from the marriage relationship. Isn’t that exactly how Satan started the mess the world was in? He didn’t tell Eve about the pain in child-bearing. He didn’t tell her about the marital conflicts that would come from it. He didn’t tell her about getting kicked out of the garden. He told her about being like God. Perhaps there was a kernel of truth in the statement. Certainly, she would learn something that God knew and in that sense would be more like God. But that wasn’t what she was looking for.

Loving Ourselves not Seeking Self

So, how does all this fit in with loving ourselves in a healthy way? Romans 2:8 helps out. Following Satan’s lies that lead to wrong-doing all stem from loving ourselves in an unhealthy way. It stems from being self-seeking. But when we love ourselves in a healthy way, we ignore the lies of Satan. We think soberly about our lives and live them based on the truth God has revealed for us. We do not allow ourselves to get caught up in the fantasies of Satan’s promises. We recognize them for the lies they are and command Satan to get behind us.

When we rejoice in vengeance, slander, lying, stealing, hurting, outbursts of wrath, immorality, gossip, and other sinful behaviors, it is because we have succumbed to the lies of Satan. Instead of loving ourselves in a healthy way, we have decided to put ourselves above others. We have decided that others are here to be the sources of our pleasure. We can abuse and misuse them however we want as long as we get a moment’s pleasure out of it. This is certainly not loving others, but it is not actually love for ourselves either. Why not? Because in the end, we are the ones hurt by this kind of behavior. We must be careful; if we bite and devour one another, we will be consumed by one another. We are only hurting ourselves when we take these cheap and easy routes offered us by Satan. He parades them around as loving self, but instead they are destroying self and others.

Love yourself. Don’t succumb to Satan’s lies. Don’t fall prey to his deceit. Don’t dwell in his fantasies. The cheap and easy route of his errors will always come back to bite you. Instead, love yourself and rejoice in the truth God has revealed. Follow His way. It works.

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(Remember to come back for our next installment about loving ourselves in a healthy way. We’ll see that those who love themselves in a godly way bear and endure all things.)

Do Not Resent Yourself–Love Yourself

November 29, 2010 by Edwin Crozier 6 Comments

Do Not Resent Yourself

Resentment is carrying a grudge against past wrongs. In fact, the NASB translates this part of I Corinthians 13:5 as “does not take into account a wrong suffered.” We do not have to carry the grudge against ourselves. We do not have to hold on to all the shame and guilt from our past sins.

When something bad happens to you, do you often tell yourself how much you deserve it because of all the wrong things you’ve done? Some folks even seem to sabotage themselves over and again because they are convinced they are themselves such a problem that they don’t deserve anything good. They deserve bad because of all the bad they have done. It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that goes something like this.

I know I shouldn’t eat this gallon of ice cream right now. It is so unhealthy and will probably give me a heart attack one day or lead me to diabetes. Not to mention, I know it won’t really help deal with the problems I’m facing right now; it will only make them worse. But what can I expect? I’m such a screw-up. I’m probably going to get those things anyway the way I mess my life up all the time. Who do I think I’m kidding. I might as well pigout now and enjoy it while I can.

No, it isn’t always bad to eat ice cream. But notice the process here that is almost never as conscious as this paragraph. When I’m carrying a grudge against myself, I end up submarining any hope of overcoming the things for which I carry the grudge. When I cave again, I simply have one more thing to carry a grudge about and the cycle continues down and down and down.

Sadly, many of us have an inbred mechanism to make sure we stay in this cycle. If we ever begin to think something positive about ourselves like we are good at something or deserve something, then we start berating ourselves for being arrogant and self-centered. After that tongue-lashing, we are ready to go back to carrying our grudge against ourselves.

We are Not the Sum Total of Our Sins

Have we done bad things? Sure. Have we sinned? Yes. Should that bother and concern us? Absolutely. Our sins separate us from God (Isaiah 59:1-2). They lead us to death (Romans 6:23). They will destroy us. They need to be dealt with. They need to be overcome. That is exactly why God sent Jesus. That is why God offers His grace. He wants us to overcome them. He doesn’t want us to linger in those sins, carrying out cycles that just dig us deeper and deeper and deeper.

We are not the sum total of our sins. We are people that God loved despite our sins (Romans 5:6-11). If God could love us instead of carrying a grudge against us despite our sins, why can’t we? According to Psalm 103:8-14, the Lord is merciful and gracious. “He will not always chide, nor will he keep his anger forever.” That is, He won’t carry the grudge. He doesn’t maintain resentment. Instead, because His love is “as high as the heavens are above the earth” He removes our sins from us “as far as the east is from the west.” “As a father shows compassion to his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him.”

If God, through His love, is willing to view us separately from our sins, removing them from us, why can’t we?

Certainly, we need to remember our sins in order to learn from them, repenting and turning to God’s way. We need to remember our sins in order to see our constant and continued need for Jesus and salvation through Him. But we do not have to carry the baggage of our sins with us everywhere we go. We do not have to carry the resentment with us for the rest of our lives. Instead, we are allowed to love ourselves and set ourselves free from carrying the grudges.

Think about this. Isn’t this what God expects us to do with others who have also sinned and even sinned against us? How much more when we have surrendered ourselves to Christ are we allowed to let our grudges and resentment against ourselves go.

Don’t resent yourself. Love yourself.

And remember, God’s way works for your life.

(Come back next Monday as we learn that love rejoices at truth, not wrong-doing.)

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.)