I’ve heard it. I’m sure
you’ve heard it, too.
“Learn to love
yourself.”
“Girl, you need to take
care of you first.”
“Don’t let anyone tell
you that you’re not good enough.”
“Believe in yourself.”
And
on and on it goes. Inspirational phrases of this type flood our Facebook feeds,
magazines, blogs, and self-help books. They sound so wrong at first, as if they
are telling you to be self-focused and narcissistic. Then they begin to sound
so right, so inviting, so kind, so healing….
THE PROOF-TEXT
Even
Christian publications are beginning to give a starring role to this ideology,
using Jesus’ own words to back up their points. What words would Jesus have
said about this? In Matthew 22:36-40, we read this conversation:
"Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hand all the law and the prophets.
SOME NEW THING
Wow.
The greatest commandments? If you
obey these, you get what the law was talking about; that’s pretty cool! But if
you’re anything like I was a few years ago, you probably didn’t see anything in
that verse to say that you need to love yourself. It is usually in this
paragraph that the author unpacks his point in using that Scripture: “You can’t
love others in the right way until you love yourself the right way.”
“Oh,
wow!” readers think. “I’ve never noticed that before! No wonder I have trouble
loving my sister…. It’s because I tell myself that I’m fat!”
Well,
yeah, that’s their connection. You can read one of those books to figure out
why.
J-O-Y
But
going back to that Scripture (and I mean that; scroll up and read it through
again), the folly of these “love yourself” teachers is that the Scripture is
not telling you to love yourself before you can love anyone else. Not at all.
When
I was a young girl, my Sunday school teacher taught me this acronym, and we all
made a craft to hang on the wall and remember:
J-Jesus
O-Others
Y-You
It spells out “Joy”,
and the way to experience true joy is to put Jesus first in our lives, then
serve other people before seeking our own pleasure. “You” is last on the list,
and there is no one behind “you”. If you look at the verses again, that is the
order that Jesus put it in, by the way.
WHAT THE BIBLE SAYS
The focus is on the
first commandment, which is loving God with all of our being. From that deep
love will come a love for others, but we don’t need to work on loving ourselves.
His point is that we already love ourselves, so love others in the way that we already love ourselves. I like what the
Amplified Bible adds here as commentary to this phrase: “that is, unselfishly
seek the best or higher good for others”.
This is true to the
rest of the Bible.
- “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it….” (Ephesians 5:29)
- “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)
- “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.” (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
Our natural tendency
is to love ourselves. In some cases, that means that we absolutely adore the
way our hair looks (today or every day), how big our muscles are, or how smooth
our voice sounds. Most of us keep these thoughts to ourselves lest we be
labeled as narcissists. But in other cases, we worship our own appetites (try
Phil. 3:19) for food (e.g. eating just because we want to), entertainment
(watching videos for hours), for pleasure (looking at pictures or words for our
lust’s sake), for material things (buying things we know we don’t need because,
again, we just want it), for anything we desire.
Especially in America today,
this sin of gluttony and indulging desires at will is hardly addressed.
Sometimes, we love ourselves by guarding against what we see as attacks: Mom
suggests that I should watch what I eat; a friend calls me mean; brother
doesn’t let me watch his show with him; husband doesn’t gush about my new
haircut…. And our defenses go up and we treat people disrespectfully, whether
the form is the pouty, stewy silent treatment or loud, poisonous words. All of
this comes from our intrinsic, natural self-love.
LOVE YOUR BODY
Self-love is not
limited to worshipping our physical aspects, which is one of the mistakes of
the “love yourself” ideology. They focus on outward characteristics that make
you feel bad, such as “you’re ugly”, “you’re fat”, or “you’re unlovable”. They
teach us to love yourself as God does: “you’re beautiful”, “God made you
unique”, and “God loves you, so believe in you!” The issue is that we’re now
worshipping the creature (me!) rather than the Creator. Remember: God’s love
was demonstrated by Jesus’ sacrifice for your salvation, not demonstrated by
God saying nice things to you.
Stewardship of our
bodies and genuine trust in God for why He made me the way I am are totally
different doctrines than that of self-love. For one thing, they’re true and
biblical. But they are subjects for another post.
THE REAL CURE
I am willing to
learn more about this and even be corrected if needed, but if I understand
correctly, the root of any type of sin is self-worship. Sexual sin? I worship
myself through pleasure. Violent anger? I worship my way, but don’t get it, so
I will force it on others. Gossip? I worship my self-image and want to tear
down hers so I look higher. Take a few minutes to think about your personal
temptations, and I think you will find that behind it all is a secret adoration
of yourself. Even in such sins as self-depreciation and low self-esteem, I
complain that nobody likes me. Me. Think about it.
What is the cure
for this root of evil? Go back to our first verses, in Matthew 22. Where was
Jesus’ focus? On “loving yourself”? Definitely not. I found it interesting that
while we often misquote and say “These are the two greatest commandments”,
Jesus said “This is the first and great commandment.” Here are some snippets of
what Webster said about the word “first”:
"Foremost in place....
"Preceding all others in rank, dignity or excellence....
"Before any thing else in order of proceeding or consideration....
[His example sentence:] "Give God the first place in your affections."
And therein lies the
key; thank you, Mr. Webster. Before worrying about whether we love others
correctly or “love ourselves”, focus on loving God as Jesus described. We will
do right by others because we see them through the eyes of eternity. We will
love the Church because we love what God loves. We will hate our sinful selves
because we will hate what God hates. We will appreciate His kind gifts of life
and mobility and taste buds because they remind us to praise Him for them and
use them for His glory.
I certainly hope
this is useful to you. If you have any questions, doubts, concerns,
corrections, or comments, you are more than welcome to contact us through the
comments section, or email us personally at contact.teachingwomen@gmail.com.
Learning to love Him,
Abby
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