Give Yourself a Break

Just like we need to accept others and love them where they are, we should do the same for ourselves. Learning to accept and love ourselves is the pathway to authenticity. This is why it’s so important that we learn to receive God’s love for us, because it’s the key to truly loving ourselves and being comfortable with who He made us.

Let me ask you: Do you love yourself? To love yourself is to accept the unconditional love of God with your whole heart, to see yourself as He sees you, and to rejoice and be at peace with who He has created you to be. I am not talking about loving yourself in a selfish or self-centered way, but loving the unique you that God created you to be. This healthy self-love is not based on what you do right or wrong, but on who you are in Christ.

Truly believing that God loves you unconditionally is the foundation for an authentic relationship with Him, with yourself, and with others. No one will love everything they do, but we should all love who God has made us to be. Depending on the translation, the Bible says at least eight times that we should love our neighbor as we love ourselves (Matthew 22:39). It is so significant to God that we love ourselves that He based another of His most important instructions to us—to love others—on this foundation.

Why is it so important that we love ourselves? First, if we don’t love ourselves, we reject God’s love for us. Second, if we don’t love ourselves, we cannot love God or anyone else. The Holy Spirit fills us with God’s love, and He wants us to let that love flow through us back to God and out to others.

God’s Word says that we love Him because He first loved us (1 John 4:19). So, if we haven’t received His love, we have no love to give to anyone else, because we cannot give away what we don’t have! I spent many frustrating years as a Christian trying to love others and failing until the Lord showed me that my problem was that I had never truly received His love for me.

After receiving this revelation, I spent one entire year studying, meditating on, and talking about God’s love for me. At the time, I had a 40-year history of not liking myself, let alone loving myself, so renewing my mind in this area took some time! At first, I felt guilty trying to love myself because I was keenly aware of my flaws. But eventually I learned that I could love who I am without loving everything I do…because Jesus does.

Knowing and living in the love of God makes us powerful because it sets us free from self-doubt and obsession with others’ opinions of us. It also enables us to trust God to do great things in and through us. It makes us feel strong and able to follow our hearts, express ourselves, and live the life God wants for us. It also helps us focus on what is right and good about us, not what is wrong with us.

When we live with the awareness that God loves us unconditionally, and when we love ourselves, there’s no limit to what He can do through us or to the enjoyment we can find in our lives.

_{Adapted from the book Authentically, Uniquely You by Joyce Meyer. Copyright 2021 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.}