Evangelical Myth #4: All Christians love themselves like the Lord loves them – that is why when you meet a Christian you feel so loved.
Wouldn’t this be great if it were true? In reality, Christians are the least likely to love themselves. It’s so tragic. How a book who’s sole purpose is to announce to a race of people that they are all made in the image of a God of love who wants to spend eternity with them and has sacrificially done everything to remove the barriers that keep that from happening could can turn out a host of fearful, angry people who are incapable of loving anyone because they are convinced that they are not lovely, is beside me.
Guilt plays a huge role in paralyzing believers. Even after knowing what we know about God’s grace and mercy and how he has forgiven and forgotten our sin, we are still hounded by guilt. Is it that we don’t really believe it? Or is it that we keep insisting on having some part in our salvation, because if we do, we will always wonder whether we have done enough.
How about you? Do you have difficulty loving yourself? I do. Something in us just can’t take a free gift. We’re suspicious. We can intellectually understand God’s love – even believe it – but it doesn’t get down to the heart of the matter. No matter how we slice it, we simply don’t believe we are good enough to be loved by God – by anyone for that matter.
The problem is, this is not a spiritual bonus – something you can live with or without, it is fundamental to everything. We can’t claim to know God if we don’t know this. And how can we love our neighbor as we love ourselves, if, in fact, we don’t love ourselves?
There is a scripture that needs to be foremost in our thinking. It should be on our lips; it should be written on our doorposts and on our gates; it should be worn around our necks the way the Pharisees wore the law. It should be everywhere because it is so hard to remember and harder still to believe: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” (Romans 8:1-2).
No condemnation. No exceptions. No joke.
John Fischer The Catch 
Explanation for the difficulty in lovng ourselves when we should know how valuable we are by what God has done for us: Our parents didn’t give us this unconditional love, therefore we carry our childhood belief that we are not lovable. All children are delusional about their parents. They would not remain sane living with the fear from knowing the truth that it is the parents fault during a time they are helplessly dependent on their parents. These delusional perceptions about parents is the reason they become the same parents to the next generation that they had as children. Learning the truth sets us free to make the choice to be different. Can’t fix it if we don’t know where and how it’s broke.
A loving father will repeatedly tell his children the things that are the most important because dad knows that repetition is a major key to learning. “Look both ways before you start to cross the street,” is something many kids hear continuously. It’s really important. Dad’s will say it over and over and over again.
God, our Father, repeats the same things over and over again in His Word.
So how many times does God command us to love ourselves? Are we warned to not hate our lives? What is the first negative characteristic mentioned at the beginning of 2 Timothy 3 where Paul described the “perilous times” that would be coming?
Did not Jesus tell us to take our self love as the standard for how we should love our neighbors? “Love your neighbor in the same way that you already love yourself.” Is that what he meant?
Christians do have a hard time loving themselves. I do myself. I have heard this scripture many times, often in the shorter version of “Therefore, there is now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus… and it is left at that. The thing that seems to condemn us Christians, at least me and many I know, is the end of that passage that is most always left out: Verse 4 “who do not live according to the sinful nature but according to the Spirit.” Humans have the sinful nature by default and therefore often have sinful desires, and being human we occasionally, if not often, give in to those sinful desires, which then leaves us feeling unworthy of our own love, much less that of a Holy God. Though we should always strive to reign in the sinful nature, we will never completely contain it in this human form, but praise be to Jesus for His sacrifice, His love and His mercies which are new every morning for each and every one of us! And you are right John, if we are to love our neighbors as ourselves, (which we are commanded to do) and we don’t love ourselves … how then can we carry out this instruction of Jesus?
With respect, I would suggest that is deeper than guilt (which is feeling bad about I’ve done) and more about shame (which is feeling bad about who I am). Experiencing shame..that feeling of “I am not worthy” is something painful and horrible, and many spend much of their life reorganizing their existence to avoid this feeling of shame. We cover ourselves, just as Adam and Even did in the garden after sinning. Only we use work, busy-ness, relentless leisure pursuits, church leadership, sex, drinking or whatever to hide ourselves from that feeling of shame. It is in becoming vulnerable and open to come out of hiding that we can experience the acceptance and love of God, removing that condemnation. For further thought:
http://vimeo.com/4620966
Dr. Brown’s exploration of shame and how that leads to self loathing is interesting, easy to integrate with our faith, and is scholarly sound.
Agreed about shame and the source is not quilt over something we have done against anyone but our origin with caregivers who did not love us unconditionally but possibly if and when we performed or even if never without a possibility to qualify for it. To stop believing that lie will free us to believe we are loved by God because He is the perfect parent who wants us to know we are lovable.
We will live according to our sinful nature if we don’t keep short accounts with God, daily as the Apostle Paul instructs. The knowledge that has increased in child and adolescent psychology is available for our edification. To stop believing the lies we were told intentionally or unintentionally will free us to believe we are loved by God because we are lovable.
Yes, I have had trouble loving myself. Resoundingly YES. Like a person at an AA meeting. Hi, I’m Donna. I am a Christian and yet I have trouble loving me.
God and I have been dealing with this one for some time. Some things that I have learned are: Our minds need renewing to truth. How can they be renewed, you ask. By reading the truth in the Bible over and over till it seeps down into the crevices of our hearts and minds and starts to renew us to His truth not the lies we have held tightly in our hot little hands. Basically as you said John “the way Pharisees wore the law”.
God unshackles the shackles of guilt and shame from us. But so many times we keep them on though they are unlocked. We walk around remembering what we have done, remembering our failures, our imagined failures even though we have been forgiven and He doesn’t remember any of them. They are as far as the east is from the west. They are nilch, nothing, noda, gone. Still we carry them like a heavy suit of armour, hiding behind them, holding on to proof why we shouldn’t love ourselves. Look God! Look how bad I am. How can you love me? And surely I shouldn’t love me cause I am BAD. But he looks and sees no sin. We have been forgiven and he looks at us and says Child I love you. I find you valuable enough that I sent Jesus to die in your place. Love yourself so you can love the world and I can love them through you. Shake off the shackles. Don’t believe the enemy’s lies any more. You are free. Beloved you are free.
This is what he says to us. I’m trying to grab hold of it and be free myself. I’m heading that way. I’m learning slowly how to do it. But slow is okay as long as we are moving toward his truth. I love Psalms 139 for this. My fav version for this is NKJV. It says I am wonderfully and marvously made and this my soul knows well…. I cling to this. The truth sets us free and as we are free we model freedom for others.
I give you 100% in this one, John. However, I would remind the reader that we can’t just forget about true guilt. If I steal, I need to repay—if I lie, I must attempt to undo the damage those lies have done—if I speed, I must pay the fine. That’s called penitence. I know of so-called Christians who excuse their own bad behavior, continuing to go on as before because God forgives them anyway. Dietrich Bonnhoefer referred to free grace as opposed to cheap grace reminding us that God’s grace came to us at an terrible price by our Savior, and we are not to cheapen it with disregard of God’s will for us. I need rejoice in being God’s child, but I also need to examine myself daily. Once we get the difference between free and cheap grace, we can find total freedom in redemption through Christ our Savior.
I give total cause and effect to Carolyn Bergen’s message on the shame, not guilt, which prevents us from comprehending our own value. In spite of the overwhelming supporting evidence our Creator has demonstrated, the source of our worth remains with PEOPLE because we didn’t learn the truth from those who impacted our childhood conditioning. Until we claim our own God given free will, we remain subject to those PEOPLE and will continue to live a lie. We cannot respect others if we don’t respect ourselves, we cannot have meaningful relationships with each other until we comprehend how much each one of us means to our Lord and that begins with knowing our own worth.