Dear Christians, Self-Love is NOT Self-Worship
Remember that Whitney Houston song, “Greatest Love of All?”
My mom hated that song.
Here’s a taste of it:
Because the greatest
Love of all is happening to me
I found the greatest
Love of all inside of me
The greatest love of all
Is easy to achieve
Learning to love yourself
It is the greatest love of all.
Is self-love the greatest love of all? Maybe, maybe not, but for the authoritative voices in my life — the pastors, missionaries, teachers of my small ACCS School (Association of Classical Christian Schools), that wasn’t the issue.
As someone who has only recently begun considering the importance of having a loving relationship with yourself, I want to address the misconception that some people — especially many Christians — have about this idea.
As a missionary kid, whose parents were on staff with an organization called Cru (formerly known as “Campus Crusade for Christ”), I was taught how to share the gospel with a pamphlet entitled “Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?”
What we would do is walk people through a series of questions using the pamphlet, questions directed at leading people to an understanding of their sinfulness and the need for divine intervention, finally culminating in a prayer that asks for forgiveness and brings salvation.
Here are two images from that pamphlet:
Self is on the throne.
† — Christ is outside the life.
o — Interests are directed by self, often resulting in discord and frustration.
† — Christ is in the life and on the throne.
Self is yielding to Christ.
o — Interests are directed by Christ, resulting in harmony with God’s plan.
Notice the very feeling-oriented nature of these words. In the first image, where “self” is on the throne, “interests are directed by self resulting in discord, frustration.”
In the second image, where Christ is on the throne, “Interests are directed by Christ, resulting in harmony with God’s plan.”
As a child, the message was clear: putting yourself first leads to despair and distance from God, whereas living with Christ’s interests in mind will lead to fulfillment and joy.
(If you want to see my take on how ideas like this can exacerbate mental health problems, read my post here.)
The extremely influential Evangelical writer John Piper wrote an article about just this: about how Christian counselors should handle the idea of self-love and self-esteem.
In it, he essentially argues that having a positive regard for oneself is not sinful, but that self-love and self-esteem are side-effects of having a good set of Christian values and achieving things according to those values.
He says:
Paul would disapprove of a counseling motif that diverted people’s attention from the infinite value of the glory of God and the attainment of that value through faith and its fruits. He would disapprove of making self-love or self-esteem or a positive self-image the goal of our admonition. Rather, he would have us aim so to transform people’s values that their contentment and joy be grounded always in the love of God, the esteem of his glory, and the steady focus on his image.
Self-love, then, comes from a synchronization with God’s value’s and the pursuit of those values as opposed to our own interests.
He says:
The contentment you get from thinking about yourself as a faithful disciple of Christ is secondary, and ought always to remain secondary, to the contentment experienced in the actual event of faith and obedience itself. To change this order is to run the risk of the worst kind of idolatry.
According to Piper, the order is: contentment in having faith and being obedient to God’s purpose THEN the contentment of appreciating yourself for being a faithful disciple of Christ. The risk, he says, is idolatry.
To me, Piper is emphasizing what I think is one of the greatest lies of Evangelicalism: that conversion is magic.
That something magical happens when one accepts Christ as savior, and that, as the first graphic says, when “the self is yielding to Christ,” we can fulfill our true human purpose, and that when we direct our own path, the result is “discord and frustration.”
Evangelicalism sells fulfillment.
Here are all “4 Spiritual Laws”:
1. God loves you and offers a wonderful plan for your life.
2. Man is sinful and separated from God. Therefore, he cannot know and experience God’s love and plan for his life.
3. Jesus Christ is God’s only provision for man’s sin. Through Him alone we can know God personally and experience God’s love and plan.
4. We must individually receive Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord; then we can know and experience God’s love and plan for our lives.
So, what happens when we don’t feel the fulfillment that we expected? Are we actually living God’s plan? What’s wrong with me?
Self-love is not about believing you are perfect; it’s about believing that your needs and thoughts matter.
Here is the takeaway.
Evangelicals who rail against self-love are not only misunderstanding themselves, but also misunderstanding love.
In this I do agree: we should not worship ourselves (what John Piper refers to as “idolatry”); however, we should love ourselves. And, even though I disagree strongly with “conversionism,” I do believe that even Christians who hold tightly to a one-way salvation narrative could learn to think differently about this.
What is worship? According to Merriam Webster, it’s “to honor or show reverence for as a divine being or supernatural power” or “to regard with great or extravagant respect, honor, or devotion.”
What is love? Let’s take the Bible’s own definition.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Love never fails.
1 Cor. 13:4–8
Now, read those verses again, but with yourself in mind.
Self-Worship…
Regards itself as the greatest fish in the ocean. Believes it can do no wrong. Believes its interests are more important than others’. Will look out for itself at the cost of others. Believes its desires and interests outweigh the cost of anything or anyone else.
Self-Love…
Is patient. Is kind. Does not boast. Is not proud. Trusts in its good intentions. Understands that love is for everyone. Forgives mistakes. Would never intentionally deceive itself. Seeks to understand, not judge. Wants the best for itself.
Another big difference between the two?
Self-worship comes naturally. Self-love does not.
Think about your romantic relationships, your familial relationships. Is loving those people fully and completely easy? Does it not require work?
You deserve your own love just as much as your spouse or your kids or you sister or mother deserves it.
That “Christ loved us even when we didn’t deserve it” (see Romans 5:8) doesn’t mean that we should continue shunning and shaming ourselves. It means we should love others AND ourselves…just as He does.
