Am I allowed to love myself?⤒🔗

In psychology and in counseling, self-acceptance is an established concept. Modern thought considers self-acceptance to be a necessary condition for a person to function healthily in all of his or her relationships. For Christians, what God teaches in the Bible concerning self-acceptance is important. Does God command me to love myself in the Bible?

Jesus taught us the greatest commandment: to love the Lord God with all your heart and soul and with all your mind, and to love your neighbour as yourself. This two-pronged commandment of love is the short summary of the whole will of God for our lives (Matthew 22:36-40). But nowhere in the Bible do we read the emphatic command: "Love yourself!"

Does God then forbid self-love? No, not that either. Nowhere does the Bible say: Do not love yourself; hate yourself!

God does command us to hate sin. That is something else. Now for us, those two are difficult to separate. Because if we look at our sins, we see ourselves! After all, we do not just do sins, but sin lives in us, says the Bible (Romans 7:17, 20). That is why our church forms repeatedly admonish us to detest ourselves because of our sin. Like Paul, we must learn to confess: "…the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin… What a wretched man I am!" (Romans 7:14, 24).

All optimism concerning humanity, regarding the good to be found in each person, is in essence humanism —in other words: resistance against God! Humanism shows the way of self-salvation: each person finding his or her worth in himself or herself, each person exploring and realizing their own self. And therein you are your own measuring rod. Everyone must follow their own conscience. This line of thought goes squarely against what the Bible teaches. Paul knows that "nothing good lives in me" (Romans 7:18). David also confesses it: "…no one… is righteous" (Psalm 143:2).

The Bible does not show us a way towards self-realization via self-justification and self-glorification. In contrast, the Bible shows us the way of humiliation and self-denial before God: "God, have mercy on me, a sinner" (Luke 18:13).

Who am I?←⤒🔗

God thus requires me to have an aversion for myself, because of the sin that lives in me: "What a wretched man I am!" But that does not mean that I, as a creature of God, must do away with myself. Precisely not. When I realize the terrible corruption of sin which has affected me, I will marvel all the more at the work of God: He made me completely good (Genesis 1:31)! God’s work as creator is above reproach. And that is something I may rejoice about (Psalm 8). God loves his creatures – those he himself made. Should I then be allowed to despise that? God also values his "human" creature highly. His favour rests on men (Luke 2:14). He gave his own Son to reconcile himself with the people. That is why, as a creature of God, I may not think of myself as worthless. That is how we get to a biblical mandate towards self-appreciation.

I am unconditionally accepted by God←⤒🔗

There can be no biblical self-acceptance without the belief that God has accepted me. The belief in God, who adopted me, is in fact the only ground for my self-appreciation as a human being. Everything else is thin air.

The Bible teaches us that God places no conditions on his acceptance of us. His love is unconditional. "This is love," says the Bible, "not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins" (1 John 4:10). Paul knows that "when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son" (Romans 5:10).

That means that I do not first have to better myself, before I can come to God. In Christ God has accepted me as I am. He has adopted me as his child, with my sinful, corrupted nature which lives in me, and with my character flaws and my personal defects.

God does not downplay the sin within me. But he accepts me as a sinner, to heal me of my sin. He takes the guilt of my sin away through the reconciling blood of Christ. And he breaks down the power of sin within me through the renewing strength of the Holy Spirit.

Because God accepted me unconditionally, I can accept myself as his child. Because he loves me unconditionally, I may love myself. My self-respect as a human being is thus absolutely not dependent on something within myself, like, for example, my origin or my character or my achievements. I derive my self-respect solely from God’s grace: He made me his own through Christ. He keeps me as his precious treasure and makes me useful and willing to serve him (Heidelberg Catechism q/a 1). That undeserved grace of God is my only comfort:  the only ground upon which my believing acceptance of myself rests.

That is why real, pure self-love cannot exist without believing love for God. When I believingly accept God’s love with my whole heart, then it cannot be otherwise than that my love for him grows as the answer in my heart. And through that love which I have for God, my self-appreciation is now also being carried and fed.

God’s love conquers my negative self-image←⤒🔗

Many people suffer from a negative self-image, because their psychological development has been warped. That disturbance of God’s good creation also occurs among Christians. In this life such disorders are not one hundred percent taken away. But Christians may be comforted in life and death with the certainty that their negative outlook regarding themselves can never outweigh the love with which God has accepted them: "…whenever our hearts condemn us… God is greater than our hearts" (1 John 3:20). Only God’s love can change our fear of God into boldness/confidence before God.

Each time I suffer due to my negative self-image, and allow myself to be paralyzed by self-hatred, and punish myself with the thought that it would have been better had I not existed, I may grasp onto God’s unconditional love for me. If, wrestling in prayer, I teach myself to surrender unconditionally to God’s grace ever more, I shall increasingly be freed of the burden of my distorted self-image through his Spirit.

I am freed from a negative self-image, from self-hatred, because God has told me that he loves me. Through the water of baptism he has assured me that he has adopted me as his child, his precious possession. If I give myself over to his love, I no longer need to do away with myself. God says to me: "You are allowed to be here!" [OR "You can be here — with me!"] I need not doubt that. After all, I may not doubt him!

Hence God’s love for me is the deathblow to my self-hatred. Through my trust in God, my self-confidence may flourish.