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‘love yourself first’ is love the way we lie

“You must love yourself first before you love others” is a lie based on psychology from the era of Sickman Freud and not scripture or historical Christian tradition. The popular ‘self help’ mindset of ‘love the self’ is counter to the gospel and obedience to Christ. Yet it is a lie we love.

Proponents argue, “The bible says, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself,’ because it says, ‘as yourself’ you must love yourself first”. The argument erroneously takes the subordinate clause, ‘as yourself’ and makes it the primary focus. The primary directive, “Love your neighbor” is glossed over. The sub clause, ‘as yourself’ is a supporting clause designed to support the primary directive ‘love your neighbor’. Each person takes care of their body, they eat when they are hungry, put on a jacket when cold, and drink when thirsty – we are to do these same things for others. The subordinate clause was there for those who would question what it means to love others. The primary directive remains love your neighbor.

Advocates of ‘love the self’ point to people who, ‘don’t love themselves’. The argument goes that they must love themselves before they can accept love. However, Scripture doesn’t tell us that we must love ourselves before we can accept love. No where does God say to love the self so that we can accept his love. The opposite is true. When we refuse to accept love because we have a negative opinion of ourselves it is because we are putting our opinion of ourselves over reality. It is pride and arrogance in our own thoughts. We reject God and hold on to our belief. The solution is not to love myself more but to think of myself less. Subjugate my opinion to reality and the gospel.

Again, what does it matter if I do love myself? I love myself. So what? Nothing happens. If I think that I must believe I am beautiful before I accept a compliment, then what is the point of the compliment? I already believe I am beautiful. This is arrogance to believe that the only opinion that matters is my own and no other opinion matters until I have the same one.

Finally, not even modern psychology agrees with the proponents of loving the self-first. Neuropsychologists and attachment experts Stan Tatkin and Daniel Siegel both profess that one does not enter healthy relationships by loving the self at all. It is, in fact, a focus on the other that brings healing and true human connection.

Why do we hold on so tightly to the idea that we must love ourselves? We want to seek our own good. It covers up how truly selfish we are either by holding to negative or positive opinions of ourselves. Loving the other first requires laying down our own lives for another—both internally and externally. We must give up careers, hobbies, food choices, and even freedoms. But what other response do we have to a God that loved us first?

Show me how Christ was loving himself first and thought of himself on the Cross and then I shall follow his footsteps. He did not. He thought of honoring the Father. How little is it to give up my own success, to be wronged, or just think not of myself?

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The Secular and Sacred

There are two great lies the church hands out freely. We are to love ourselves first and there is a separation between secular and sacred. The first is more widely held and defended. When I politely suggest that loving yourself first is not scriptural it is Christians who respond viscously. Those who do not profess Christ easily accept it. Christians are supposed to love others more than themselves. That is Christ like, is it not?

More subtly is the separation of the secular and the sacred. The separation is not taught as much as implied. Sermons, books, conversations, bible studies, and tweets imply that the unseen spiritual world is of more importance. Church ministry, worship songs, winning souls for Christ, reading the Bible all have value. Everything else is just pointless filler.

If you are working a secular job, it is good to tithe and not do wrong things in front of your coworkers and invite them to church. But your real life is the spiritual things you do around your job. You have the unfortunate position of only getting in a few hours of spiritual work. Blessed be the church ministries that get to do spiritual work 40 hours a week.

Christ cares for conduct of all people, everywhere, in every action. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it well unto the Lord. If this means taking extra time to clean the runners in your sliding door unto the Lord, then do it well. If it means leaving that task undone to respond to a friend on Facebook, then do so to the Lord.

The separation degrades most of our life from diligent stewardship of God’s gifts into pointless tasks. Those not in full time ministry feel lost and without purpose. It strips lives of opportunities to serve and glorify God. Worship moves from all people, all places, everywhere to fifteen minutes on Sunday morning and listening to Phil Wickham in the car.

Our crowns are created and shined on earth. They are shown in heaven. The next several posts I will be covering how to change our thinking to undo the separation of secular and sacred.

My Broken Crown: Confession of Dishontesty

I am probably most proud of my first post on broken crowns. I love the imagery. So I choose to continue it here.

We all live as though walking through a room dimly lit. Regardless of how much we try we will never be able to see our external, internal, and the spiritual world perfectly clearly. In this room we wear our crowns with an only partial understanding as to what they are. I perceived mine to be shining, and with gems in place. Several scratches and dents, but on the whole perfectly wearable. My fault, I believed, was that I did not always wear it. That is to say I know many things that I ought to do, but simply do not do them.

I was approached by two lights that revealed to me the true state of the world, and my crown I proudly wear.

I am deceitful and lie. Four times now I have lied directly to my family. Countless other times I lead them to believe that which is not true. I tell one version of a story to one group of friends and edit that story for another. The person who I present is ever changing and morphing beyond just situational wisdom. The person I present myself to be does not exist.

Even more with the men that I profess hold me accountable I partition different faults to each. I speak of this sin to this man, and this other one to this. In doing so I prevent any of them knowing just how wretched I am.

When I finally have seen my crown in the light it is not polished, it is dented and malformed and the gems are but shards of glass. I sided with satan and wore a deceivers headpiece.

There truly is only one light that reveals to us the state of our crowns. He is Jesus. He does choose to allow his light to be reflected off of those whose crowns have been tempered, fixed, and shined. I met one of these individuals with a crown shined in honesty. I stubbornly would not bring my tarnished crown to be repaired. Instead I continued to hide behind the covers and fake paint applied to it. By the time I finally came to admit my crown is in need of repair, my dear reflector of the light had gone.

It pained me to see my sister post a meme, “A real man will be honest no matter how painful the truth is. A coward hides behind lies and deceit” It was painful. But pain sparks growth.

So I humbly speak as one that must become worthy of trust. In order to see myself repaired and made whole I must do the very thing I avoided. That is with complete honesty present myself to others and to God. It is only in my last counseling appointment that I was able to speak out and say all of the wrongs I had done, and I pay him to listen to me. The journey is slow and tiresome. Lord have mercy.

Thankfully Christ has a plan for my crown and myself who wears it. This plan included realizations as to who I am, who I am not, that my life affects those around me, that I must speak the truth, that close loving relationships require vulnerability and complete honesty.