A friend of mine asked a great question on Facebook.
“Does God command us anywhere in Scripture to love ourselves? Is it a pre-requisite to love ourselves before we are capable of loving others?”
He went on to write a piece in his blog that hits the nail right on the head! Love yourself to death by Roger Venne
See to it that no one carries you off as spoil or makes you yourselves captive by his so-called philosophy and intellectualism and vain deceit (idle fancies and plain nonsense), following human tradition (men’s ideas of the material rather than the spiritual world), just crude notions following the rudimentary and elemental teachings of the universe and disregarding [the teachings of] Christ (the Messiah). Colossians 2:8 Amplified
We live in such a narcissistic age, one in which a sinful and blatant self-centeredness has become the “in” thing, to the point of deification, in my none too humble opinion, ;) and this theology has also wormed it’s way into the pulpit. There are just as many “Christian” books on esteeming and loving oneself as there are in the secular world. These Christian books that write about esteeming and loving oneself seem to be no different from the offerings from the world of psychology, even with the added Christianese for good measure, these books are encouraging self-realization…something that is not Christian. We are not called to self-realization but to identification with Christ!” Roger said,
“The Scripture that says the greatest commandment is loving God and loving others as yourself does not mean you need to love yourself. It’s exposing how much you DO love your”self” and it should blow your mind that Christ is asking you to love others like that. We are completely self-loving self-seeking individuals. No one has to teach us to be selfish. In fact, He had to expose us so that we could see things differently. In no way do I think God would even HINT at commanding self-loving creatures to love themselves. That is absolutely crazy.”
No kidding! One of the first things you have to teach a child is to share! Unfortunately we American Christians have been taught for the most part to cherry-pick scriptures to satisfy our own point of view, instead of “looking at the entire council of God (systematically cover to cover).” So, when we hear these philosophical and intellectual debates against the Word of God, we’re for the most part un-armed and un-able to discern the truth. From the beginning to the end of God’s love letter to us, He is always guiding us, drawing us, away from self, out towards others. He goes on to say,
“What is witnessing?? I believe witnessing is telling someone about the love of Christ and how it has changed your life. How would it look after talking with someone for an hour about the gospel, the healing words of Christ, how it has transformed you from your old self to the new and how much He loves this person, to suddenly telling them “You gotta love yourself first though.”
Would that not completely shift their line of thinking?? Isn’t the tradition of men self-love? self-esteem. Self-empowerment. Meeting your needs so that you’re able to meet others? Isn’t talking about loving yourself kind of like anti-witnessing? It’s taking the focus off of the love of God and shifting it to an inward love. “Don’t look up, look inward.” It just blows my mind how Christians can think this way. Am I missing something?”
Do nothing from factional motives [through contentiousness, strife, selfishness, or for unworthy ends] or prompted by conceit and empty arrogance. Instead, in the true spirit of humility (lowliness of mind) let each regard the others as better than and superior to himself [thinking more highly of one another than you do of yourselves]. Philippians 2:3 Amplified
If we as Christians have nothing better than the latest pop-psych to offer, why would the hurting and lost come to Christ? They’ve tried all that stuff, it’s empty and without substance. It is a substitute for real change and real transformation. So, why are we watering the Gospel down? Why aren’t each of us then “ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in us…” as Peter admonishes us to do? I think Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 gives us the reason…we’re children and we don’t want to grow up! We want and crave the milk of God’s Word and refuse the meat…because it’s hard. We want our ears tickled.
For the time is coming when [people] will not tolerate (endure) sound and wholesome instruction, but, having ears itching [for something pleasing and gratifying], they will gather to themselves one teacher after another to a considerable number, chosen to satisfy their own liking and to foster the errors they hold, and will turn aside from hearing the truth and wander off into myths and man-made fictions. 2 Timothy 4:3-4 Amplified
So, to me it comes down to this…do we obey God or man?
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