If you didn’t already love yourself, you wouldn’t . . .

Humans love themselves but we’re not so good at loving God and our neighbors. You love yourself because if you didn’t you wouldn’t:

Want and/or insist on your way.
Try to protect yourself.
Do self-destructive behaviors hoping they will ease your pain.
Care if you were unhappy.
Become offended when you’re insulted
Want to be healed when you’re sick.
Care if you were treated unjustly.
Worry about yourself and your health.
Feel ashamed when you know you’ve done wrong.
Trust your own opinion.
Want to fulfil your feelings, your desires, your dreams, and your needs.
Physically hurt yourself to attempt to distract yourself from emotional suffering.
Want to be praised and appreciated.
Take medicine when you are sick.
Feel proud of and/or boast about your accomplishments.
Work hard to get other people’s approval.
Feed, clothe, and bathe yourself.

Self-love is no stronger than we are, but God’s love is as powerful as He is. Self-love is weak and unable to heal our deep wounds and hurts but experiencing the reality of God’s love brings about amazing freedom and inner transformation. Experiencing God’s love for me causes me to forget about myself and concentrate on Him. It doesn’t focus my attention on me.

Experiencing God’s love for even one moment is far more powerful than a lifetime of attempted self-love. God’s love will not only heal you, but if you will get self out of the way it will freely flow through you to others. If we would seek to surrender to God’s love as much as we focus on self-love, we’d live a miraculous life of awe and wonder.

Self-love makes self-surrender difficult, but self-denial facilitates it. Perhaps as humans we need self-denial and self-surrender more than self-love. It’s easy to love yourself, but hard to deny yourself.

Self-love is weak and unable to heal our deep wounds and hurts, but God’s love brings about freedom and inner transformation. Understanding that God loves people is nice, but continually experiencing God’s love for me as an individual is indescribable.

About Steve Simms

I like to look and think outside the box. In college I encountered Jesus Christ and I have been passionate about trying to get to know Him better ever since. My wife and I long to see the power and passion of the first Christ-followers come to life in our time. I have written a book about our experiences in non-traditional church, called, "Beyond Church: An Invitation To Experience The Lost Word Of The Bible--Ekklesia." If you need encouragement, search for: Elephants Encouraging The Room and/or check out my Amazon author page. Thank you!

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