April 2, 2023

I cannot recall a place in Scripture where Jesus tells us to love ourselves. He tells us to deny ourselves, to take up our cross and follow Him. He said if we do not hate father and mother, wife and children, and brothers and sisters, yes even your own life, you cannot be a disciple of Christ (Luke 14:26).

The two commandments that Jesus gave us fulfill the law of the old testament. “He answered, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul with all your strength and with all your mind‘; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’.” Luke 10:27
Here we see the only place where Jesus talks about loving ourself. He says we are to love others as we love ourself. The word here used for love is agapao, which toward a person means ‘to welcome, to entertain, to be fond of, to love dearly’. So we are to show this kind of love to both God and to our neighbors. Later in the same chapter Jesus tells us who our neighbors are. They are anyone who is in need no matter who they are.
The way I have come to understand this commandment, in light of the rest of the Bible, is to take care of others, your neighbors, as you would take care of yourself. We are not to grow in pride toward ourselves, thinking how great am I, but are to say “How great is God!”

Somewhere along the way, the churches started spreading the saying “Love yourself” to the congregation. I know many people who believe this lie, that they must first love themselves before they can love others. This current generation has grown accustomed to self-love, which if you step back and look at it, will see how corrupted it really is. Those who are unsaved preach self-love because they hate God, they don’t want God because they know they have sinned. While we are in our sin we are enemies of God. So the logical next step would be to take that love that we should be giving to God and transfer it to ourselves because it feels good to our pride. It builds us up where we can say, “I don’t need God.”

I’m not saying don’t take care of yourself. What I am saying is don’t believe the lie that pushes our pride into overdrive. Focusing on loving ourselves takes our eyes off of Christ and makes us open to temptation and suseptable to the devil’s schemes. Instead, focus on the unseen things rather than the physical, because the physical or the seen will pass away, but the unseen will last for all eternity. (2 Cor. 4:18)

The focus of the Christian should be Christ alone. Speaking from the vantage point of a recovered anorexic, when we focus on ourselves, in whatever form, it corrupts everything. We become corrupted in our thoughts, our hearts, and then in our actions. I used to think I could lick my bad habits and my bad thoughts, but all my attempts fell to failure. Only when I cried out to God when I thought I would never be rid of the anorexic thoughts and feelings did God take drastic measures to cleanse me of that sin. He let me have a health problem which made me pass out one morning. This showed me that death is but one breath away. I realized how easy it is to die. I didn’t want to go against God. I want to please God, even more so now that I have been changed

“Then there came a voice from above the vault over their heads as they stood with lowered wings. Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be His waist up He looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down He looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded Him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around Him. This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking.” Ezekiel 1:26-28

When we’re walking with God on a daily basis, eat, sleep, breath for Him, and following His will, we can have confidence that He is with us when we enter into the lion’s den.