Jesus told us in Mark 12:29-31 that the two great commands are to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. That means of course we have to love ourselves. Some of us do that okay, but it’s not always easy to get it right — some not enough, and some too much! Either extreme — insisting on loving ourselves too much, or insisting on low self-esteem — can tend toward idolatry. Let’s look.
Isn’t it okay to love ourselves because God loves us? Actually, that’s the best measure of how we should love ourselves. Not from our own broken human motivations, but simply caring for our bodies and taking adequate (but not overly much) attention to our own well-being, just as God cares for us. Paul writes in the context of giving ourselves to each other, "husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body” (Eph. 5:28-30). So just as Christ loves and provides for all of us, we are allowed and expected to care for ourselves — but also, just as much for each other.
Assuming we love God with all we have, how can we go wrong with loving ourselves? One extreme is to have too much emphasis on own opinion, having our own way, and insisting on our own comfort. (You can find many references to these in the book of Proverbs, and a very good commentary on them is found in the chapters of C.S. Lewi’s’ book The Screwtape Letters.) Following that extreme of loving ourselves too much results, of course, in not loving our neighbors well. For a simple test of this principle, ask your spouse or a good friend: how often are you opinionated, defensive, frustrated or just plain selfish? When we insist on our own way over others’, we can also verge on insisting on our own importance over that of the Almighty. That’s dangerous — after all, are we in charge of the universe? The ending chapters of the book of Job remind us that we aren’t!
Some people have a very low self-esteem, insisting on believing they are worthless, and not taking care of themselves, and there are many reasons for that belief. But sometimes that low sense of self is simply pride turned in on itself: it says “I should be better than this, or in a better position than this, or more people should respect me, and since what I think should be true, isn’t true, I’m going to feel sorry for myself.” How can we grow out of this? One good corrective is to remember how much Jesus has done for us, which should show us how much he says we are really worth! Another help is to have a realistic look at what is true and not true about ourselves, probably with the help of a trusted friend or counselor, to ‘get real’ with what is possible and what is not — and also, what could improve if we took the right steps. Not everything we may think about ourselves, either good or bad, is permanent, except for the love of Jesus for us.
In the end, as Paul writes to all of us in Col. 3:5, “Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshipping the things in this world.” So to put ourselves, our agendas and desires and comforts ahead of others or of God, is to be greedy for our own way, which is worshipping an idol that just happens to be ourselves. Let’s watch out for that, and when we find it, bring it to Jesus for his complete forgiveness, which is sure.
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