Go Ahead and Love Yourself!

We have all been taught as Christians the importance of loving our neighbour regardless of their differences from us. In an increasingly cynical world this becomes hard to do in our strength indeed we were never supposed to fulfil this command of our Lord in our own strength. The verse in Matthew 22:29 actually says: "love your neighbour as yourself". Therefore if we are told to love our neighbour as some kind of external discipline and we don't love ourselves or have a very low opinion of ourselves then no matter how hard we try - we will not succeed in loving anyone else including our neighbour! To love yourself is not a form of narcissism or arrogant vanity. I once dated a girl who spent far too much time admiring herself in front of the mirror and kissed the image of herself in the mirror before leaving the bathroom! Needless to say the relationship did not work out - thank God for His way of escape!

Instead, loving yourself is to see yourself in Christ forgiven and accepted, and to see yourself highly favoured and deeply loved by the Father. John, the Apostle stated: "We love because He first loved us" (1John 4:19). Loving yourself is to see yourself in a positive way and to cease speaking negativity over yourself.

Guess what, when we start to see ourselves loved, accepted, favoured by God and reconciled to Him we will have time to get our eyes off our weaknesses and see others through the lens of love, acceptance, favour and reconciliation. This does not mean tolerating consistent negative behaviour without confronting it, but it does mean helping and serving where we can and affirming people for their advancement not flattering people for our advancement.

Geoff Newton