Self-Love in Christ
We live in a world that is obsessed with perfection. There are so many standards that we feel the need to live up to and when we don’t meet these standards we feel as if we are not good enough. The truth is, our constant pursuit of perfection stems from our need to be loved.
Because of our need to be loved, we run to different things hoping to feel loved, but we don’t know what unconditional love truly is. This is why we try to fill our void with clout or materialistic things where we really just end up feeding our ego which only offers a temporary feeling of satisfaction/contentment. Or we run to relationships whether it be romantic relationships or platonic relationships (friendships, family members, etc), where we end up expecting people to love us in a way that only God can love us. In all honesty, the things we run to, from the likes on Instagram to that one guy/girl texting you back, might make you feel good for a moment and it might be what you want, but it is not necessarily what you need.
When I first heard about self-love, I tried to love myself without God. I found myself in a constant cycle, where one day I would love myself and the next I felt like there was no way that I could ever be loved. Human nature only knows how to love conditionally. When we try to love ourselves without God, our love is conditioned to our perception of ourselves in a specific season or moment of our lives. Our perception of ourselves is always changing, and every time it changes we have to learn to love ourselves all over again.
Self-love without God can be draining and futile. Self-love with God is peaceful, refreshing and full of happiness.
Self-love with God goes beyond just tolerating your flaws or who you are as a whole, it means total acceptance and appreciation of who God has made you to be. 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 defines unconditional love. Loving yourself means being patient with yourself, being kind to yourself, not envying others or boasting or being prideful. It means honouring God, yourself, and others, being humble and slow to anger with yourself. It means keeping no receipts of your wrong doings and being honest with yourself.
It means protecting yourself through God’s wisdom and discernment to stay away from things that are only meant to bring you down. It means trusting yourself because God lives in you (1 John 4:13). It means being hopeful and persevering especially in the moments where love feels difficult and tough times are lasting. Basically, loving yourself unconditionally means doing or expressing all of the things the bible says love is to yourself. All of these things are who God is, which is why it is impossible for us to love unconditionally without God.
The only way to love yourself unconditionally is to open up your heart and let God (who lives in you) love you because loving yourself and loving others unconditionally is something that we can’t do in our own strength. You have to step away from the pursuit of perfection and the world’s standards and lean into God. Leaning into God can be difficult sometimes because it challenges our flesh but leaning into God is a decision we have to make and the best decision to make because it means choosing life (Deuteronomy 30:19-20). Leaning into God means putting in the effort to grow your relationship with him, spending time with him and praying, reading the bible, and overall choosing life and choosing him.
There might be challenges. Leaning into God can sometimes be uncomfortable because it requires you to step out of your comfort zone or let go of things, habits and sometimes even people that are hard to let go of BUT every challenge against your flesh paves the way for a new blessing to enter your life that is worth so much more than what you may have lost.
If you are reading this, God wants you to know that you are loved. He wants only the best for you, and he wants you to love who you are in him!
More life,
Reagile