Do you have to love yourself before you can love others?
The question is: don’t you have to learn to love yourself before you can love anyone else? That sounds good. It makes sense even. After all, if you hate yourself, where will you find the strength to love? You can make all kinds of arguments that sound very wise and even biblical to support this idea, but unless you can actually give a biblical support for this claim watch out.
Because each claim that you cling to that isn’t a biblical one is by nature unbiblical. It sounds harsh, but bear with me. We have to get this one. Anything that sets itself up as biblical or even Christian truth, but is really the result of a world trying to figure out life without God’s word, is pollution to the Christian mind. When you are born and raised in a culture it becomes very easy to adopt that culture, even when you don’t want to. Whether it is out of ignorance, or just constant exposure to a way of thinking, it is very easy to adopt unbiblical social norms as biblical truths.
Whenever you hear something or believe something, test it against God’s word. In this case the concept is love. So let’s dive into a study of biblical love and see if we can prove or disprove this theory.
The two greatest commandments both involve love. So if there were going to be any conditions that apply to your ability to love you would think they would show up there, so let’s have a look: “Jesus replied, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” ( Mk 12:29-31 NLT) Notice the order of these two things. First love God with everything that is in you, and then equally important, love others as you love yourself.
Now some of you are saying, “See! Love others as you love yourself.” But don’t miss that Jesus says we must love God how? With ALL your heart, with ALL your soul, with ALL your mind, and with ALL your strength.
So no less than 100%! And how are we to love others? With 100% of our being? It doesn’t say that does it? It simply says to love others as you love yourself. So you could love yourself with 1% of your being or 100% of your being, what Jesus simply says here is don’t love others less than you love your self. These commandments are not commands to love yourself, but to love God with everything and love others no less than you love yourself. So if Jesus doesn’t talk about loving yourself other than don’t love others less than yourself, where do we get the whole “you have to love yourself” mantra? Secular psychology of course. The discipline of psychology focuses solely on studying and improving SELF and was developed by non-believers.
So taking the liberty to put words in the mouths of the founding fathers of psychology like Freud, Skinner, Machen, and their ilk, here is psychology’s version of the two greatest commandments:
“Listen, O America! You are the One and only Lord. And you must love yourself with all your heat, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength. The second is only important after following the first: ‘Love your neighbor almost as much as yourself but never more than yourself.’
You see, in psychology, SELF is god. But let’s not stop there! In John 15:12 Jesus explains love again, “This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.” Notice that this love is based not on how you feel about yourself, but on how Jesus loves you. We can never love anyone better than that.
Biblically mandated love is never based on a condition. Love others once *blank* happens. It is never that emotional or shallow. It is a command, and as no one can command a feeling, you can be sure that the love God calls us to isn’t a mushy, I adore you because of the way I feel kind of love, but a conscious act of your will to treat others in love.
The world has crept into our theology when we start to put conditions on love. You can’t love others, UNTIL, you love yourself. Then God’s command is useless, how can he command you today to do something that isn’t possible until you get another condition settled?
In First John, love is explained like this, “This is the message you have heard from the beginning: We should love one another. . . . If we love our Christian brothers and sisters, it proves that we have passed from death to life. But a person who has no love is still dead. Anyone who hates another brother or sister is really a murderer at heart. And you know that murderers don’t have eternal life within them.” (1 Jn 3:11;1 Jn 3:14-15 NLT)
Waiting to love others for any reason is a dangerous choice. It reminds me of the man who wanted to follow Jesus but said that he first had to go home and get things in order.
Following Jesus, just like loving, has little to do with how we feel about ourselves, but all to do with giving up concern for ourselves and turning instead to Jesus. In Mark 8:34-35 Jesus says, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake and for the sake of the Good News, you will save it.”
Again in 1 John 4:7-8 we are commanded, “Dear friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God. Anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God. But anyone who does not love does not know God, for God is love.” In this verse it is made clear that our ability to love comes from God. When we accept the Spirit of God into our lives, we gain the ability to love, for God is love. Again, it has nothing to do with how much we love ourselves, but how much he loves us.
“This is real love—not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins. Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love is brought to full expression in us.” (Jn 4:10-12 NLT) Why do we love? Because God love us. How do we love? God’s way. When do we love? Always.
This is the kind of work that we should do whenever we find that we are accepting a way of living. Take what we believe and test it against God’s word. It might seem like a subtle nuance, but each nuance that sets itself up in our lives in opposition to God’s word helps the culture to integrate itself more and more into our lives. It desensitizes us to lies and keeps scripture at arms length. We are followers of Christ. We cannot allow the world to lie to us. We cannot take those lies and call them truth, not even for a moment. Refuse what sounds good to our flesh, but can’t be supported by scripture especially when it keeps you from acting on God’s word. ESPECIALLY THE TWO GREATEST COMMANDMENTS! If you were to believe that you had to love yourself before you could love others, then you might put off God’s command to love until you felt like you loved yourself. How long is it okay to put off God’s commands? A Day? A week? Or should we act on them instantly? “For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.” (James 1:23-25 NLT)
My brothers, let’s not allow the world to dilute our faith. Refuse to integrate concepts based on yourself as god, as the most important being, into your way of living. Test everything against God’s word. Refuse to be passive and to accept cultural norms, even cultural norms that have been made ‘Christian’. Let it be our goal to obey God’s word instantly and always. And we will have more blessing than we know what to do with.
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