Recently,
another humanistic idea was presented to me, and that is the idea of self-love.
Whenever I hear this term, I shudder, similar to when people believe and
confess that we are all gods and a part of god. Someone came to visit and
I told her I had a sudden pain in my left knee that had been there a couple of
days. She told me that she has used a technique that worked for her
called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). She explained that it
works like acupuncture, but without the needles, and she claimed that it
had worked for her. So I was quite interested, until the term
"self-love" came up, which works in conjunction with it.
First I had to say a few times,
"Even though I have pain and discomfort in my knee, I deeply love and
respect myself." That
was soooooo hard!! Why? Because I know that without Jesus I am nothing. He took
me in my sinful state, and He loved me as I am. I deserved nothing but
punishment for my sins, and death. But Jesus paid MY PRICE!! I am forever and
ever grateful to Him for what He did for me! So to focus on how much I
love myself frankly felt foreign, strange, and plain wrong since I know in my
heart that it is not and never will be primarily about ME! It is about
God and how truly incredibly awesome He is!!!
So that was how it began. Then
I had to tap under my eyes, my shoulder, top of my head, etc. and say,
"I have pain and discomfort in my knee." So I tried the techniques for a
short while with the tapping and confessing the pain, and then finally I
couldn't do it anymore. I had to stop. I told her that this goes contrary
to what I believe! In fact, I told her that I believe the exact opposite.
I said that I believe that what we confess is what we get, so if I keep
confessing the pain, I will just get more of the same! Then I told her that our words are a
very powerful thing and what we speak will happen! She agreed. I said that I
declare healing over my body and I speak the Scriptures - that by Jesus'
stripes I am healed. I said that Jesus took the punishment for me when He died
on the cross, and when He was beaten, He took it for our healing, so He would
suffer for it and not us! I said I had thanked Him each time I quoted the verse
for going through that torture for me! I also said that I had been healed
by quoting this Scripture (in fact too many times to count).
Then the conversation came back
again to self-love, and she said it was important to love ourselves. I
said I do but only in the light of how God sees me. That's who I really
am. I said He loves me in spite of my flaws. At that point the
conversation ended.
This
incident really made me think about things!
I believe that the greatest thing that can ever happen to us is that we
see ourselves for who we truly are! In my case, I knew I needed to be set free
from myself and I knew that the sin that I loved was killing me! People think that it's wrong to feel guilty,
but we ARE GUILTY before God!
Rom 3:19 Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it
saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all
the world may become guilty before God.
Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be
justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
And as far as being worthy or consider ourselves good people,
Scripture is crystal clear:
Rom 3:10 As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one:
Rom 3:11 There is none that understandeth, there is none that
seeketh after God.
Rom 3:12 They are all gone out of the way, they are together become
unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one.
How
must God feel that His created beings turn away from Him to serve themselves
and continue to be slaves to sin, especially since He laid down His own life to
save us? We are only saved not because
of who WE ARE, but because Jesus PAID OUR PRICE FOR OUR OWN SINS, and HE chose
to do so out of love for us! All we have to do is repent and turn away
from our sin. He forgives us as far as the east is from the west! People don't repent because they don't see
their own sin for what it really is -- a transgression against God! He
has every right to punish us, but He chooses not to!
So
what does it mean to love? True Agape
Love is the life that Jesus lived -- He was willing to give His life for
another. This is true love because it is selfless and sacrificial.
If we read I Corinthians 13, we have it all broken down for us.
This is a humbling passage to read, and one that would take a lifetime to
try and live by! We put God first, then others, and self last. If we
truly love God, we will obey Him. This is what Jesus said:
Others will know we serve Jesus by our love for one
another:
The
cult of self-love comes from a misunderstanding of the Bible taken from the
passage where we are told to love your
neighbour as yourself (see Luke
10:27). Jesus was once asked, Who is my
neighbour? Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan as the example of how
to treat our neighbour (another human being in need) -- see Luke 10:30-37. We are to go above and beyond. We love
ourselves already (no man yet hated his own flesh - see Ephesians 5:29), now we
are to go out and love someone else with the same or better care that we give
to ourselves.
As
for self-esteem, it can only come from a true picture of who we are in God’s
eyes, and not our own. In and of
ourselves, our sinful nature will naturally want to put our own ego and “self”
on the throne of our lives, and this is what humanistic thinking is rooted in,
self as ruler and the pursuit of self-actualization. True self-esteem comes from a redeemed life,
from the loving and merciful hand of God Himself who made us and knows us and
loves us unconditionally. We will
experience a true view of ourselves once we are humble and willing to admit our
own sin, and our great need of a Savior.
Then He comes to us and lifts us up, cleans us up, and loves us like no
human can ever come close to. Anything else will never bring the
fulfillment we seek or set us free from the pride that keeps us slaves to
ourselves.
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