You Can’t Love Others If You Can’t Love Yourself

Insecurity is often the root of many marital problems. Because if you don’t love and accept yourself, it’s almost impossible to love and get along with your spouse.

For years, I struggled to walk in love and get along with people. Finally, God showed me that I had not received His love for me because I was still mad at myself for all the things in my past. I came to understand that if I did not receive God’s love for me, then I could never love myself. And if I never loved myself, I could certainly never love anybody else because I didn’t have any love to give away!

If you can be at peace with yourself and truly love yourself, you can then look outward to loving others. I’m not promoting self-love that is self-seeking or has a self-centered focus, but God desires for each one of us to see ourselves as He does—as His unique and cherished masterpiece who is loved and valued by Him.

Some of the greatest hindrances to truly loving ourselves are comparing ourselves to other people and focusing too much on our own weaknesses and inabilities. It helps when you understand that people are different by God’s design. He has given each of us special gifts and talents. I am not like you, and you are not like me…and that’s okay.

Romans 12:6-8, 10 (NIV) says, We have different gifts, according to the grace given each of us…if it is serving, then serve, if it is teaching, then teach; if it is to encourage, then give encouragement…Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.

Notice that even though we have different gifts, we are called to love each other and give precedence to one another. Whatever gift we have, we should do the best we can to serve others with it.

And while we should honor others, we should never try to be exactly like someone else. So many people spent years being frustrated and disliking themselves because they can’t do something another person can do.

I encourage you to be all that you can be, but do not despise yourself if you can’t be like someone else or do what they can do. Because when you make peace with yourself, it brings such freedom, and it allows you to truly love the other people in your life.

We all have weaknesses. The truth is, we will never find the perfect church, the perfect pastor, or the perfect spouse. But we can look at all those things—ourselves included—through the eyes and mindset of our perfect Savior.

The greatest thing you can do to fight insecurity is to read and study God’s Word and choose to think and say what He says about you. Regularly speak things like, “God loves me! I am special to Him, and He has created me for a purpose.” As you do, you will begin to truly love yourself…and then share that love with your spouse in so many meaningful ways.

_{Adapted from the book Making Marriage Work by Joyce Meyer. Copyright 2000 by Joyce Meyer. Published by FaithWords. All rights reserved.}