Can a Christian Love Himself?

Many conservative Christians are leery of the concept of loving yourself. They, like me, are afraid of becoming proud or selfish or worldly. They, like me, also have a tendency to believe that because we have a sin nature (which is indeed a problem) we are damaged goods that must be unlovable.

Here are 4 thoughts on this:

1)     > God created each human in his image (see Genesis 1) and loves us extravagantly as we are (yes even before getting right with him - see Romans 5:6-11.) Even though the image of God in us has been marred by sin, it is still there and of infinite value.

2)     > Jesus told us that the second greatest commandment in Scripture is to love our neighbours as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:37-40). The obvious implication is that we must love ourselves adequately before we can love our neighbour effectively.  A husband is also advised that to love his wife is to love himself. He is to love her as his own body (Ephesians 5:28-29). 

3)     > In addition to all of this, we see that God came down in human form in order to reconcile us to himself in the greatest act of love and mercy ever conceived. Now, even our sin nature has been dealt with if we accept the saving grace of Jesus’s death on the cross. Now, the image of God is being restored in us as we are conformed to Jesus – and one day that image will be perfected in us again.

4)     > Indeed, pride, selfishness and other sins are evil and need to be repented of by the grace of God. It’s good to hate the sin within us (see Romans 7), however, none of that involves hating ourselves (which is really just pride reversed – ironically, a sin in itself).

To be clear I’m not referring to the secular idea of loving oneself. This view implies that there is nothing wrong between us and God in our natural state and that sin is non-issue. It also tends to put ourselves above others and to make the individual more important than the community.

As Christians, we do not want to avoid the reality of sin; nor do we want self-exaltation or self-absorption in our lives (e.g. 2 Timothy 3:2). While we are to deny ourselves as Jesus called us to (Matthew 16:24), we still need self-respect and appropriate self-care. This is God-honouring.

In light of the 4 points above I believe we not only *can* love ourselves but *must* love ourselves in appropriate ways. If we really believe that God loves us immensely as we are, who are we not to love ourselves? Perhaps even, if we allow ourselves to be kind and loving to ourselves, we will actually better understand God’s love for us.

 I’m still working on this…