Love Yourself?

Much has been said and written recently about the need to love ourselves. Do a search on YouTube or the Internet- you’ll find thousands of references on the subject of self-love.

I have a problem with this concept, I believe the idea of self-love is misleading. Yes, everyone wants to be loved. We all need to be accepted and valued. But ‘self-love’ isn’t how we do this. The concept of self-love requires that we develop it within ourselves; that we conjure it up by our own effort. This makes it an earned benefit, one that really isn’t love.

True love is different; it’s given, not earned. True love doesn’t require us to perform for it. We acquire this kind of love through faith. When we follow God’s plan, his love will fill our hearts freely.

To receive true love, we must sow it and reap it.  Here’s what God spoke through the prophet Hosea:

Sow righteousness for yourselves, reap the fruit of unfailing love

Hosea 10:12a

Here, Hosea applies God’s master principle of sowing and reaping to our acts of righteousness. He’s saying if we treat others and God right, then, God will repay us by filling our hearts with his love. (Those who follow my blog regularly know that I am a big believer in sowing and reaping. I am convinced that it’s God’s master principle for a successful life.)

Some might say, “Hosea said that if we sow one thing (righteousness), we’ll reap something different (unfailing love).” But that isn’t the case. When we act righteously toward others, we’re sowing love. We can see this from the answer Jesus gave to a Pharisee who questioned him about the greatest commandment.

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. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

Matthew 22:37-40

Jesus taught that all the requirements of the Law could be condensed into these two laws of love. In other words, if we love someone, we won’t steal from them, lie to them, or try to sleep with their spouse. We can conclude that when we treat others right, we’re practicing love. And, as Hosea said, we can expect a harvest from our sowing.

We can see that when we treat other people ‘righteously’ we’ll reap a harvest. But this is only half the story. We need to realize that we should sow righteousness in two directions–toward God as well as toward man. We understand this from the answer Jesus gave to the Pharisee when he said we’re to love God and our neighbor. This two-sided approach is important because the way we sow righteousness toward God is different from the way we sow toward people.

The reason for the difference is that God’s requirement for right behavior is absolute. Anything less than perfect obedience is sin. The apostle Paul understood this.

As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not even one;

Romans 3:10

This presents us with a problem. How can we sow righteousness if we can’t be righteous? The solution is Christ. He provided the righteousness God requires of us.

But now apart from the law the righteousness of God has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Romans 3:21-24

Paul declares that our faith in Christ is what God counts as righteousness. Many of us miss this point. We try to earn God’s approval by meeting some self-imposed standard. We believe that if we go to church enough, pray hard enough, and behave well enough, God will accept us. This self-righteous attitude will kill our faith. God doesn’t want us to work for his acceptance; he wants us to trust Jesus to be good enough for us. That’s why the apostle John wrote that God’s command to us is to place our faith in his son.

And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.

1 John 3:23

God’s only command we have to meet to be righteous in his eyes is the command to believe in Jesus. When we place our trust in his gift of righteousness, and not our own effort, we’ll be qualified in his sight.

1. Take time to consider what Hosea 10:12 says about sowing and reaping love.
2. Ask God to show you ways to sow love into other people’s lives.
3. Develop your faith in Christ’s redemptive work while rejecting efforts to justify yourself.

Adapted from the Book:

Enemies of God In Our Minds

Copyright © 2021 Curtis A. Guyer All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

*All scripture quotes, unless otherwise noted, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used by permission of Biblica®, Inc. All rights reserved worldwide.