I Need To Learn To Love Myself (part 6)

By Nancy Leigh Demoss

“Low self-esteem” is one of the most common diagnoses of our day. Mental health professionals diagnose it in their clients; teachers diagnose it in their students; pastors diagnose it in their counselees; parents diagnose it in their children; and countless people diagnose it in themselves.

“You need to learn to love yourself” is the world’s prescription for those who are plagued with a sense of worthlessness. It has become a popular mantra of pop psychology and of a culture filled with people obsessed with finding ways to feel better about themselves. One religious catalog offers an attractive afghan with a “Love Yourself” acrostic:

Let go of the shoulds in your life.
Open up to the miracle of you.
Value your uniqueness.
Explore your dreams and passions.

Yield to life--go with the flow.
Obey the voice of your spirit.
Unwind--get cozy and comfy.
Renew yourself--body and soul.
Surround yourself with caring people.
Express yourself--be true to you.
Linger longer at what you enjoy.
Feel God’s special love for you.

Another catalog offers a “Magical Nightshirt,” with the following message printed backwards, so the wearer can read it to herself by looking in the mirror: “I am a precious, wondrous, special, unique, giving, rare, valuable, whole, sacred, total, complete, entitled, worthy, and deserving person.” The nightshirt is “meant to remind you just how precious and unique you are.”

As with much deception, the lie represented in these advertisements are not the polar opposite of the Truth; rather, they are distortions of the Truth. According to God’s Word, the Truth is that we were created in the image of God, that He loves us, and that we are precious to Him. However, we do not bestow that worth on ourselves. Nor do we experience the fullness of God’s love by telling ourselves how lovable we are. To the contrary, Jesus taught that it is in losing our lives that we find our lives. The message of self-love puts people on a lonely, one-way path to misery.

How often have we heard someone say, “I’ve never liked myself,” or “He just can’t love himself”? According to the Scripture, the Truth is that we do love ourselves--immensely. When Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves, the point is not that we need to learn to love ourselves so that we can love others. Jesus is saying that we need to give others the same attention and care we naturally give ourselves.

If I get a toothache, I immediately look for a way to identify the problem and get rid of it. If I didn’t “love myself,” I would ignore the pain. But when someone else has a toothache, it is easy to be indifferent to his need--that’s his problem. We naturally love ourselves; we do not naturally love others.

The same point is made in Ephesians 5, where Paul says that husbands are to “love their wives as [they instinctively love] their own bodies…After all, no one ever hated his own body, but he feeds and cares for it” (vv. 28-29, italics added).

On the other hand, there may be certain aspects of ourselves that we do not like. Such as a defect. There are certain things about each and every one of us that we may hate and even despise and desire to change. But even so, we still love to live. We love ourselves enough that we take care of our bodies at least to an extent.

We are constantly looking out for ourselves, deeply sensitive to our own feelings and needs, always conscious of how things and people affect us. The reason some of us get hurt so easily is not because we hate ourselves but because we love ourselves! We want to be accepted, cherished, and treated well. If we did not care so much about ourselves, we would not be so concerned about being rejected, neglected, or mistreated.

The fact is, we do not hate ourselves, nor do we need to learn to love ourselves. We need to learn how to deny ourselves, so we can do that which does not come naturally--to truly love God and others. Our malady is not “low self-esteem,” nor is it how we view ourselves; rather, it is our low view of God. Our problem isn’t so much a “poor self-image” as it is a “poor God-image.” We are suffering from low God-esteem not self-esteem. Our need is not to love ourselves more but to receive His incredible love for us and to accept His design and purpose for our lives.

Once we have received His love, we will not have to compare ourselves to others; we will not focus on “self” at all. Instead, we will become channels of His love to others.

(Check out Nancy's website at http://www.reviveourhearts.com/)

This is continued in my next blog…