Is Self-Love Biblical?

 When Jesus was asked about the greatest commandment, He responded with a classic and well-known command:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, and all your strength.”

Jesus made it clear that the most important calling that any of us have is to love and obey and live for God, to give Him all of our devotion and commitment. We understand this to be something that, by nature, is not always easy for us to do. 

Being sinners who have a natural tendency to love lots of other things besides God, it was important for Jesus to remind us that, if we are truly going to obey the Father, we must start with a sincere love for Him.

But then, immediately following this reply, Jesus followed it up with “the second greatest commandment.

He said, “And the second is like it - to love your neighbor as yourself.”

Again, in this statement Jesus touched on something that is not entirely natural to us and that tends to go against the grain of our sinful human nature - to love others deeply. 

We want to be loved. That part of our human nature seems to be pretty strong.

The desire for love, for acceptance, for belonging.

But there is another part of our human nature that is mentioned in this second great commandment - the love of self.

It is natural for  us to love ourselves. This is not news to us. We all - as human beings built for self-preservation and pleasure - live with the ambition of loving and caring and providing for ourselves, meeting our own needs, looking out for our own interests, sometimes finding it too easy to put ourselves before others. 

Love of self is natural. And Jesus - being both human and the Maker of humans - was no stranger to that reality. Understanding the human tendency towards self-love that has existed ever since the beginning of creation (think Genesis, Adam and Eve, the forbidden fruit), Jesus connected this natural love of self with an important command to mimic that love in one’s treatment of others.

To be more clear - self-love is natural. Others-love requires effort. And Jesus didn’t tell us to quit loving ourselves. He simply said to take that same level of love and also apply it to our “neighbors.”

As you love yourself - caring for yourself, meeting your needs, pursuing your interests and desires, seeking survival and preservation and a thriving life - so do unto others.

Self-love is not less than or greater than others-love. It should just be the blueprint for how to obey this second great command of God. 

So, to answer the question: is self-love biblical?

Well, no. 

But is it sinful?

Also no.

It’s something that  is assumed simply by nature of who we are as human beings. It’s also something that we should be careful not to prioritize above the love of God and the love of others. Because when it does become our main priority, self becomes an idol, and that becomes sin.

So how do we exercise self-love from a godly approach, being careful not to let it become sin for us?

We understand our worth in God’s eyes.
Loving something involves seeing its value. If I don’t value something, it’s going to be hard for me to love it. The same is true for our own selves. 

This does not mean that we look at ourselves in the mirror and simply identify all the great things about ourselves, or that we puff ourselves up with the idea that somehow we are a gift to the world, a magical and unique snowflake that the rest of the world should treasure.

The truth is that we are imperfect. We make mistakes. We are broken. AND, we are sinners.

BUT, it’s also true that God made us and that we have worth and dignity because we were created in His image. We are loved by Him even though we have so many imperfections and flaws. And even though we are sinners, we can receive His grace.

So, our worth doesn’t come from our performance or our accomplishments. It comes from the simple fact that we have been made by God and have a purpose for our existence.

We look out for our needs and interests, but not to the exclusion of the needs of others.
Self-preservation is built into our humanity. Ever since Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, humans have lived with the need for survival and with the ambition to fulfill our needs in whatever ways available to us. Obviously this can - and has already - cause problems in life, when individuals put their needs and wants ahead of others. Societies have crumbled because of such strong individualistic and selfish ambitions, and it can be argued that selfishness and pride are some of the strongest evils of our world today and the source of so many of the injustices that continue to take place. 

It’s important to pursue our needs. It’s not wrong to want to thrive and succeed and achieve great things in life. This is part of our natural love of self and, exercised in the right ways, it can be healthy and productive. But, it has been said that “evil exists in extremes.” So, it’s also important to be moderate in our self-preservation. 

Love yourself by taking care of yourself. Seek to fulfill your needs. Pursue your desires and ambitions in life. Chase whatever dreams are in your heart. Work to ensure that you have a life that is enjoyable, peaceful, and healthy - in your finances, relationships, material goods, family life, career, and even in the enjoyment of things that are pleasurable. But don’t let your pursuit of those things cause you to ignore the needs of others. As I said earlier, self-love is the blueprint for others-love. Jesus said, “As you already love yourself, so love other people.”

So where does this leave us?
Self-love can exist in many different forms, and it’s important to establish a regular practice of it in everyday life. A failure to love ourselves can keep us from being any good for the people around us.

I’ve encountered so many people over the years who, for various reasons, have struggled with the concept of loving themselves. Instead, they have gotten really good at loving others more, or even despising themselves and failing to see their own worth. 

I’ve seen this lead to suffering. And, while the antidote to life’s problems is not just to love yourself and let everything else go, it is important to understand that we cannot pour from an empty cup. 

If we are failing to see our own worth and value, if we are failing to adequately care for ourselves and our bodies, if we aren’t giving our own lives enough consideration, then it’s going to be so hard for us to keep showing up to be who we are supposed to be for anyone else.

So, I’ll end with this encouragement: love yourself appropriately. Care for yourself well. Recognize your God-given worth. Love yourself as God loves you. And love others in the same ways, recognizing that God’s command was not to love yourself more, but to love your neighbors as you are already loving and caring for the person in the mirror.