I think one of the greatest problems with Christianity today is that we have not learned how to love ourselves. We know that pride is such a huge sin, probably the worst of sins. But pride is selfish, it is comparing yourself to others and putting yourself above others. We then think that it is a sin to love ourselves, and tend to beat ourselves up constantly.
But loving yourself is something entirely different than pride or conceit. God created us individually unique from everyone else, and he loves us each individually more than anything else in the world. Our problem is that we don't allow ourselves to believe that. We don't allow ourselves to be loved by God, which doesn't allow us to be loved by others, which doesn't allow us to love ourselves.
The reason why it is so important to love ourselves is because it allows us to see ourselves the way God sees us. He told us to love our neighbors AS OURSELVES, and I think there is an important key in that. You can't love others if you don't love yourself. And the reason is because when you don't love yourself, you are constantly looking for approval and self-worth from others, and when we look for that from others it will always fail. Nobody can ever validate us, and it will just leave us constantly performing in front of others, trying to get others to like us, and the relationship becomes self-serving. We can't love someone else if we are constantly worrying what they think of us.
We need to realize that God loves us and get all of our self-worth and acceptance from him, because that is the only true source of it. Then we will realize who we are and be able to love ourselves, being confident in who we are and not seeking acceptance from anyone else. Only then are we free to love others. Free to love them for who they are, and not who we want them to be, or what we want to get out of them.
Only then can we also love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength. When we realize how much he loves us, and how beautiful he made us, we can finally worship Him with everything that we are, because we finally know who we are and we can give all the glory given to us back to Him.
You can't receive love from others or love others if you do not love yourself first, and love yourself for who God made you and know what he really thinks about you no matter what anyone else thinks about you.
But loving yourself is something entirely different than pride or conceit. God created us individually unique from everyone else, and he loves us each individually more than anything else in the world. Our problem is that we don't allow ourselves to believe that. We don't allow ourselves to be loved by God, which doesn't allow us to be loved by others, which doesn't allow us to love ourselves.
The reason why it is so important to love ourselves is because it allows us to see ourselves the way God sees us. He told us to love our neighbors AS OURSELVES, and I think there is an important key in that. You can't love others if you don't love yourself. And the reason is because when you don't love yourself, you are constantly looking for approval and self-worth from others, and when we look for that from others it will always fail. Nobody can ever validate us, and it will just leave us constantly performing in front of others, trying to get others to like us, and the relationship becomes self-serving. We can't love someone else if we are constantly worrying what they think of us.
We need to realize that God loves us and get all of our self-worth and acceptance from him, because that is the only true source of it. Then we will realize who we are and be able to love ourselves, being confident in who we are and not seeking acceptance from anyone else. Only then are we free to love others. Free to love them for who they are, and not who we want them to be, or what we want to get out of them.
Only then can we also love God with our whole heart, mind, and strength. When we realize how much he loves us, and how beautiful he made us, we can finally worship Him with everything that we are, because we finally know who we are and we can give all the glory given to us back to Him.
You can't receive love from others or love others if you do not love yourself first, and love yourself for who God made you and know what he really thinks about you no matter what anyone else thinks about you.
posted by The Jake at 7:24 AM
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