You Already Love Yourself
When Jesus commands us to love our neighbors as we love ourselves, He isn’t saying (as many insist these days), “You have to learn to love yourself first.” No, He’s simply acknowledging that we already do love ourselves. We don’t have to work on that; it’s inborn.
Developing self-esteem is not the greatest need of humankind today. Nor is the lack of self-esteem the greatest sin in the world. The greatest sin in the world is the rejection of Jesus Christ, and the world’s greatest need is submitting to Jesus Christ.
Every one of us, without exception, loves ourselves. So the Bible says, “For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as the Lord does the church” (Ephesians 5:29).
“You’re wrong, Chuck,” someone says. “I hate myself! I really do. I look in the mirror and I’m so ugly, I just hate myself.”
Wait a minute! This person in the mirror that you say you hate, are you angry because he or she is ugly? Or are you happy because you see such ugliness in your reflection? If you really hated yourself, then you’d say, “Man, that person is so ugly, I just love it! Ha, ha, ha, I’m so ugly. How great! Because I hate me.”
But you don’t do that, do you? Of course not. No one does. Why not? Because we all want the best for ourselves—and that’s what love is, wanting the best for someone. Blaise Pascal, the French mathematician and philosopher, used to say that even those who hanged themselves demonstrated their self-love, because in taking their own lives, they hoped to improve their difficult situation.
Or think of it in another way. If I were to videotape the congregation coming out of church this week, and then later I were to put up a big screen to show the video, who would you be looking for on the screen?
Maybe I’m different from everyone else, but when I look at a group picture, I always look first for me. I want to see how I look. I want to see if I closed my eyes when the flash went off—and if I did, then it’s a horrible picture. It’s an ugly photo. Tear it up! Even though everyone else may look great, if I look bad, it’s a horrible picture and should be destroyed.
You love yourself enough to see that you get three square meals a day; don’t you?
You love yourself enough to see that you have opportunities for a little luxury once in a while; don’t you? You love yourself enough to see that you have a roof over your head; don’t you? You love yourself enough to see that you’re comfortable; don’t you?
The Lord doesn’t command you to love yourself. He knows He doesn’t have to, because you do that automatically. That’s why I refuse to believe the idea that you have to learn to love yourself in order to love your neighbor. That’s a bunch of baloney. We all love ourselves. This foolishness that, “You have to learn to love yourself so you can love your neighbor” is not scriptural. The Lord recognizes that we already do love ourselves. Certainly that love, like everything else, got twisted in the fall when Adam and Eve disobeyed God in the garden; but it’s still there.
So when Jesus says, “Love your neighbor as you love yourself,” He means, “just as you naturally want the best for yourself, so you must want the best for your neighbor.”
Do you think that sounds easy? It’s not.
- excerpted from Love The More Excellent Way by Chuck Smith
