The greatest commandment helps us see self love as a prerequisite and assumption before we can truly love others. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ -Matthew 22:37-39 Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. You are the child of God and have great worth just because of that fact! See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Since we are included in humankind this means that loving and accepting ourselves is one of the ways we love and reflect God too. “The moral implications of the doctrine of imago Dei are apparent in the fact that if humans are to love God, then humans must love other humans, as each is an expression of God.” An article from Christianity Today puts it this way, The “Imageo Dei” is the doctrine of God’s deity or Godness placed in human beings. You are made marvelously in the image of God. So even though yes, we all have a multitude of sins, focusing our energy on negative thoughts and beating ourselves up over our wrong choices is not what God wants for us. We are sinful, liars, selfish, prideful, con men and women, who choose to live in rebellion to God. This involves us knowing the truth about ourselves. God wants us to rightly esteem and value ourselves. God values YOU SO MUCH that He gave his only child, the apple of His eye, the perfect one Christ Jesus–to save you and love you forever! Why does God want us to love ourselves? John 3:16 says “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.” For those struggling with self love, who often feel worthless, God’s high value and love on your life can serve of reassurance of your highest value in His eyes. The Bible assumes that self love is already happening naturally in most people. In Ephesians we see this again, in chapter 5 where Paul commands men to care for their wives with the same tender, loving care they give themselves. When God says the second greatest commandment is to “love your neighbor as you love yourself” this is not a small amount of love, but a huge, radical decision to love further than most will ever go. We see that in a number of verses where God commands us to love as we love ourselves. While you won’t see the phrase “self-love” in the Bible, the concept of self esteem and self love are assumed in the Bible.
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