I’ve invited a few people to be guest contributors on my blog.  Only one of them, so far, decided to take me up on that.  That would be my dad.  So, you’ll notice the difference in style and voice, etc.

This is an excerpt from a sermon that he preached a few months ago.  I thought it was fitting to share that right now because a lot of people like to talk about love and focus on love this time of year.  Thank you Valentine’s Day.

This is his take on what the Bible has to say about loving yourself.

What do you think?  Want to see more from him?  Want to hear from other guest posters or just me?

Matthew 22:37-40 Jesus is questioned about the law. He sums it up in love for God and love man. But it is the second commandment, actually the last two words in the verse, that I want to talk about now. “AS THYSELF”.

Jesus is saying here that the only way we can love someone else is to love oneself. Self-love.  That is a hard concept for a lot of people. We are supposed to humble ourselves. We are supposed to be as nothing. That is what we are taught many times. And yet Jesus says that we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. Apparently it is possible to have true humility and still love oneself.

It is so easy to beat ourselves up over our mistakes. Satan likes to bring them up over and over and over again. Wanting us to question the love of our Heavenly Father. But God says that He will remember our sins no more. That He casts them into the depths of the sea.

Self-love, I believe for many Christians, is a very difficult proposition because of the way we are taught and the way we are raised. And yet Jesus says we must love ourselves. And why not? We are children of a king. We have mansions being prepared for us.

But it is that mistake that I made years ago. I’ve prayed about it. I know if we confess our sins He is faithful and just to forgive our sins. But I just can’t let it go. Or it is the person that I hurt that I loved. Or it is that sin, that secret sin that no one knows about that I keep struggling with. Whatever it is, it keeps us from truly loving ourselves. Instead we keep beating ourselves up over it.

But God says that he forgives us. God says He will give us victory over those stubborn sins. He doesn’t say it will be easy. But He does say to turn them over to Him. He has the power to help us to overcome. And he will. But we must turn it over to Him and trust Him. And when we fall, we must confess our sin and trust in His forgiveness. Satan is the one who wants us to believe that we aren’t good enough for God. I’ve had people tell me that they will come to God when they are good enough. God says come now and He will make us good enough.

Psalm 85:1, 2 The Psalmist says that God has forgiven His people and covered their sin. If God loves us enough to cover our sin, to throw it into the depths of the sea, Shouldn’t we love ourselves as God loves us? Christ died for you. He died for me. There could be no bigger sacrifice for heaven to make for any one of us. We are redeemed by the blood of the Lamb.

1 John 1:7 tells us that Christ’s blood cleanseth us from all sin. What more can we ask for? We need to love ourselves as God loves us.