Why is God’s love better than self love?
Self love is glorified more and more in today’s world. But, here are 7 reasons why love from God is better than any love that you could “give yourself”:
- Love starts with God. (1 John 4:19)
- God Himself IS Love. (1 John 4:8)
- God knows us better than we know ourselves. (Psalm 139:1-24)
- God’s love is unchanging and will never let you down. (Exodus 15:13)
- If you love God, all your actions – toward Him, others and yourself (too), will be rooted in love. (1 Corinthians 16:14)
- Trying to love yourself apart from God will result in selfishness & destruction. (2 Timothy 3:1-5)
- Our hearts were made to be loved by our Father, God. We can never fill this emptiness on our own, no matter how hard we try. (Psalm 13:5)
The Bible teaches the exact opposite of self love.
Self love is in the Bible. But not in the way that many interpret it to be in today’s culture. But rather, because it is assumed to already be true.
Matthew 22:39 “And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.“
Unpacking the meaning of this verse yields the following expanded translation: “You shall love your neighbor as you already do love yourself.”
Thus, self love is assumed in this text, not commanded.
Ephesians 5:29 “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church”
Again, this is showing that you already love yourself since you feed and clothe yourself. Is self love commanded? No. Numerous verses in the Bible tell us that our focus should not be on ourselves.
Philippians 2:3 “Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.“
Versus 6-11 in Philippians 2 goes on to tell us how Jesus is our prime example of self-sacrifice. Verse 5 tells us to “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus”
Sacrificial love is our command. Not self love.
We do not need to view ourselves as worthless:
- We are children of God.
- We were made in His image.
- We have been redeemed by Christ.
- We have the Holy Spirit living in us, working in our lives to bring us closer to holiness everyday.
However, we are no longer in our previous unregenerate state that values self over everyone else. So, as we grow in Christ, we should also be growing in:
- Humility
- Sacrificial love for others
- Servitude
- Valuing others above ourselves
We need Christ MORE.
Love as described in the Bible is quite different from the love as advocated by the world.
- Biblical love is selfless and unconditional
- Whereas the world’s love is characterized by selfishness
In the following passages, we see that love does not exist apart from God and that true love can only be experienced by one who has experienced God’s own love firsthand:
- Romans 13:9–10, “The commandments, ‘Do not commit adultery,’ ‘Do not murder,’ ‘Do not steal,’ ‘Do not covet,’ and whatever other commandment there may be, are summed up in this one rule: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.”
- John 13:34–35, “A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”
- 1 John 4:16–19, “And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment, because in this world we are like him. There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. We love because he first loved us.”
The statement “love your neighbor as yourself” is not a command to love yourself.
It is natural and normal to love yourself—it is our default position. There is no lack of self-love in our world. The command to “love your neighbor as yourself” is essentially telling us to treat other people as well as we treat ourselves. Scripture never commands us to love ourselves; it assumes we already do. In fact, people in their unregenerate condition love themselves too much—that is our problem.
In Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan, there was only one who showed himself to be a true neighbor to the man in need: the Samaritan (Luke 10:30–37). There were two others, a priest and a Levite, who refused to help the man in need. Their failure to show love to the injured man was not the result of loving themselves too little; it was the result of loving themselves too much and therefore putting their interests first. The Samaritan showed true love—he gave of his time, resources, and money with no regard for himself. His focus was outward, not inward. Jesus presented this story as an illustration of what it means to love one’s neighbor as one’s self (verse 27).
We are to take our eyes off ourselves and care for others. Christian maturity demands it.
Philippians 2:3-4: “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others”
According to this passage, loving others requires humility, a valuing of others, and a conscious effort to put others’ interests first. Anything less than this is selfish and vain—and falls short of the standard of Christ.
None of this should be taken to mean that we should see ourselves as “worthless.”
The Bible teaches that we are created in the image of God, and that fact alone gives us great worth (see Luke 12:7). The balanced, biblical view is that we are God’s unique creation, loved by God in spite of our sin, and redeemed by Christ. In His love, we can love others.
We love others based on God’s abiding love for us in Christ.
In response to this love, we share it with all whom we come in contact with—our “neighbors.” Someone who is worried that he doesn’t love himself enough has the wrong focus. His concern, biblically, should be his love for God and his love for his neighbor. “Self” is something we want out of the way so that we can love outwardly as we ought.
Before we know the true living God, we will always turn to false idols, and worship the god of self.
Life is full of suffering, trials and injustice—and the world is searching for an answer, healing, salvation—in everything but God.
- Our nature is idolatrous and without God’s sovereign grace, we will never seek after God, but only the god of our own imagination.
- If left to ourselves and our own depraved, deceitful hearts, we will choose every false way, live in the false light of a counterfeit love and spirituality, and worship anything but God.
- But we can’t save ourselves—not by loving ourselves more, not by our own imaginary free will, not by any attempt at saving others or saving the world.
- This is contrary to everything we hear in the world that is screaming that it is all up to you to be the change you wish to see.
- The end goal of Satan is to deceive the whole world by making them believe they have freedom outside of Christ, that they are gods—just like the first lie in the Garden of Eden “ye can be as gods”.
- The vehicle for this is the religion of self—it is not rooted in God’s love, God’s Son, or the atoning blood of Christ, but in self love.
“The self love philosophy that all famous false teachers promote are constantly trying to give a solution to the lack of a clear conscience within us, a way to remove guilt and shame without faith and repentance in Christ. Loving our sin will not save us. Loving Christ will save us. Self love is selfishness wrapped up in a virtuous, enlightened package to deceive us into thinking we are getting better, when we are totally depraved, dead in trespasses and sins, without hope. We are made in the image of God BUT we are fallen, born in Adam. We don’t deserve anything but hell. We are not inherently good or worthy or deserving. This is why we need Christ—and not more self love.“
We are taught in countless ways that to love someone is to exalt them and raise their own self love.
John 12:43: “For they loved the praise of men more than the praise of God”
If we point someone to themselves and not to God, we don’t love them—this can come in the form of everything from self help, vain philosophy or social and political activism.
To have the love of the world, morality, or riches, or much truth but not have God is to perish in the end.
Love of self is not in the law of God.
In Scripture it is assumed we love ourselves. The false message is that in order to love others, we must first love ourselves. But Scripture says if we don’t love others we don’t love God (1 John). It doesn’t say if we don’t love others we don’t love ourselves. In other words, if we don’t love others we aren’t a Christian. The answer in this case is not self love, it’s God’s love. Sin is always deceiving. So the sin of self love is deceptive.
Dying to Self
Biblical love is in Christ alone.
Outside of Christ there is nothing good, nothing to go inward to find except SIN. In Christ we are loved and accepted by God and then have the ability to love others as God commands us to. Outside of Christ we are enemies of God.
Galatians 2:20: “I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me”
Biblical love is to love others by dying to self, to put others before self, to sacrifice—to point a dying world to the Savior, at all costs—the cost of our reputation, being loved and admired by the world, our own vain glories and worldly ambitions, and maybe even our livelihood and other worldly comforts.
We must mortify the deeds of the body and walk in the Spirit not the flesh.
We are strongly warned in Scripture of pride and the love of self. Scripture tells us,
2 Timothy 3:1-5: “This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away”
Our biggest problem is self.
The Bible is always telling us to face ourselves honestly. It’s because we don’t examine ourselves that we suffer from self. Because when we do it honestly we have nothing to boast about. We must not be puffed up and think more highly of ourselves than we ought to. We haven’t produced or created anything that we are. Every sinner saved says, “I am what I am by the grace of God.” We praise God not man.
We have to die to self. Not love ourselves more.
If we just look like the world, and live entangled with the affairs of this world, and the vanity of life, we do not glorify God. In the end all of our works will be judged and all the works that glorified self will be burnt up. When Jesus came He made Himself to be of no reputation. He became a servant, unknown, brought up in poverty. But humbled Himself and became obedient unto death. The Lord of glory was not considering Himself but dying on the cross that you and I may be redeemed from sin and self, and become joint heirs with Him. He had one thought—to do the Father’s will.
We are exhorted in how to walk in a way that pleases God and to have the fruit of the Spirit, all of which is the opposite of selfishness and pride:
Galatians 5:22-26: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not be desirous of vain glory, provoking one another, envying one another”
If we are His, our pride will be crushed and it will be painful. Pride is self love. It’s idolatry of self. It’s the wide path that leads to destruction. In the day of His power, God the Holy Spirit will come in and He will break our pride, and self trust, and cleanse us of our idols.
The world is greatly deceived.
To call ourselves inherently good, or the source of love and light, and be in need of nothing outside of ourselves, is to tragically bypass the reality of the sin that we are and our desperate need for the Savior. The opposite of self love is not self hatred, it is the love of God. We are to deny ourselves, not hate ourselves. There is a better way than the way of self. It comes with a cost, but not the cost of your soul. It comes with a death, but not the eternal death of loving only self, but a death to self. Jesus says I am the way, the truth, and the life. In Christ we don’t have to struggle to forgive ourselves because we have been forgiven, we don’t have to conjure love within ourselves, because we are loved by Almighty God and we can pour this great love by which He loves us into others.
All teachings that point you to the love of self and not to Christ are sending you to hell.
If you sit under these teachings in churches, workshops or retreats, or online, repent and turn to Christ alone. Jesus tells us,
Luke 14:33: “Unless you forsake all that you have you cannot be my disciple.”
No matter how much you love you, on the day of judgment, God will throw you into hell if you’re not found in Christ. We don’t have to love ourselves because God gives us something so much greater than our own self love. He chose His elect in Christ before the foundation of the world—the eternal love of God.
Satan has counterfeited love more than anything else because God is love and Satan desires to be his own god. But those who love God turn from the flesh, the world, and the devil and look to Christ alone to know what love is, dying to self, walking in obedience to God’s law of love:
Romans 13: 8-10: “Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law. For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law”
Self love is the problem, it is not the solution.
The leading cause of poor mental health is self love.
Matthew 10:39: “Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.“
When you are practicing in teachings such as self love & creating routines around such, do you focus more on God or more on the Universe?
Loving self should not be the pattern for the follower of Jesus.
The answer for joy, security and peace will never be found in ourselves.
Without Christ, we remain in darkness.
Those who are not in Christ are still in darkness. This is a spiritual darkness that keeps a person from seeing reality. Not only this but a person in darkness confuses their thoughts for true light. Jesus warns us about this:
Luke 11:35: “Be careful lest the light in you be darkness.“
Of course, Jesus is the true light that frees us from darkness. Being in Him brings greater freedom! (John 1:4-5)
Freedom in Christ
The one outside of Christ has little to no control over themselves after all. Only in Christ do we know who we really are. Only in Christ can we step into the light. And only in Christ can we overpower our sinful desires.
Matthew 16:25 “For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
The problem is never that we don’t love ourselves enough. The problem is that we are sinners. We don’t need to love ourselves more; we need to be born again. Regenerated. Made a new creature in Christ. Only then do we live our true purpose—what we were made for.
Freedom is found in obedience to God, not in maniacal commitment to discovering ourselves. Our lives are not only about us, and that is a relief.
In seeking your “true self”, you will never find the true Christ.
In studying the true Christ, you will find your true God-given identity.
We were made for God’s glory – not our own glory.
Isaiah 43:6-7: I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back: bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the ends of the earth; Even every one that is called by my name: for I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him.
The Gospel
When God breaks down the barriers of self love and the worship of self, and comes in saving grace, we turn around and have one purpose and one message to a lost and perishing world—to glorify God and share the Gospel of Christ.
God loved us in eternity and has given us eternal life at the cost of His Son, Jesus Christ.
John 3:16: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
God without Christ is no God. There is only one way to God, not through self love, but through the Lord Jesus Christ. God’s love is the ultimate sacrifice, that we may know Him and love Him forever, because He first loved us and gave Himself for us.
In God’s sovereign love, He saves us from Himself, from His wrath that He poured on His Son when He killed Him on the cross, becoming sin who knew no sin, dying in our place.
What was once foolishness to us becomes our wisdom and our power and our boast.
1 Corinthians 1:18, 24: “ For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.” ; “but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
Find Christ where he is – in Scripture – and you’ll know both who God is and who you were made to be.