Have you ever thought about how loving yourself (which is commanded when Scripture several times says to love your neighbor as yourself) is actually an incredibly humble stance in life? Let me repeat that. Loving yourself is humble.

Here’s why I think so—I think you can only love yourself when you see who Jesus made you to be, and start to accept the love He has for you. Love is demonstrated, and He demonstrates this love all the time. The danger comes when we try to perform or deserve love. We try to measure our worth by what we do or how “good” we are. God doesn’t love us because we have measured up to a standard in some way. In fact, He says we all fell short of the standard. And yet. He still chose to love us.

When we fail over and over, we assume that God will get sick of us sometime. The problem is that He didn’t start with loving us because of our successes. He loved us before we loved Him—before we could see Him as anything but an enemy. He calls to us in love constantly, regardless of our behavior.

So often the things we don’t love about ourselves are the ways we fall short, and I get that. But if our weaknesses are calls back to Jesus, they actually become places of incredible growth. This is why Paul could celebrate his weaknesses—they became places he could see God’s power more clearly through him.

I believe that we can only love others and ourselves when we have God’s perspective, and His love to do so. We can’t generate this perfect love on our own, and come to a place of loving when we are humble enough to recognize this. This humility is the only way to truly loving ourselves and others. Embrace a posture of receiving and dive deeply into the love of God that surrounds you, fills you and flows all around you to others.

Jesus answered him, “ ‘Love the Lord your God with every passion of your heart, with all the energy of your being, and with every thought that is within you.’  This is the great and supreme commandment.  And the second is like it in importance: ‘You must love your friend in the same way you love yourself.’  Matthew 22:37-39