Love Yourself

Really, in today's world?

With everybody taking selfies and posting them on social media for the world to see, does this need to be said? We say we live in a self-centered world. Does anyone not love themselves?

You might be surprised.

According to the Center for Disease Control, suicide is the third leading cause of death in adolescents aged 15-19. According to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States across all ages, with an average of 117 deaths by suicide every day.

That's just one set of statistics. The number of people who deal with self-loathing through drugs and alcohol, bad relationships, self mutilation, and every unimaginable form of self abuse is something I couldn't bring myself to research. I know it's high. Too high.

Those people don't love themselves. Not as God loves them, anyway.

Are we supposed to love ourselves?

Isn't that wrong? Isn't that like pride or something? Arrogance? Selfishness? Isn't that the problem with the above-mentioned self-centered world?

Let me ask you this: What did Jesus mean when He said love your neighbor as yourself? Does that command not require that we love ourselves? Putting others before yourself does not mean you have to hate yourself.

God wants you to treat others as you treat yourself. Does He want you to hate or abuse others? Of course not. He wants you to love others. He wants you to love others as you love yourself.

He wants you to love you.

Because He made you and He loves you.

Genesis 1:31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. 

Psalm 139:13 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

 John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Romans 8:38, 39 For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

There's a difference between loving myself and being in love with myself.

I think you know what I mean. God said I am supposed to love Him first, then love my neighbor as I love myself. That order is very important. As long as I put God first, others second, and myself third, this whole self-love thing will work itself out. It's when we try to jump a rank or two that we get in trouble.

That being said . . .

If you don't love yourself, you won't love others. You can't. The command of Jesus to love your neighbor rests upon the foundations of love of God, and love of yourself. If you don't love yourself, how can you love your neighbor?

Anyone who says you shouldn't love yourself is leading you astray. God first. Neighbor second. Then yourself.

You are worthy of love. How do I know?

God loves you, and He's never wrong.