“For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power…” 2 Timothy 3:2-5a

Self-Love

Part 1

When I was a young adult, self-esteem was all the rage. We read it in magazines, heard it from friends, and were counseled on how to have it by professionals. For Christians, that concept was quickly put to rest by saying we should have God-esteem, not self-esteem. In other words, our worth is found in the fact that God has foreordained us, called us, and saved us by the blood of His own Son—and not because we are such loveable folks.

Honestly, I don’t know anyone who doesn’t do evil in at least one of the above ways. The longer I look at the list, the more I realize that everything on it stems from being “lovers of themselves.” (Please note an important distinction: Being a lover of self is different than accepting who God has made you to be. God has NOT made you to be unloving, unholy, a slanderer, and so forth.)

If we are lovers of self, we will exhibit all the behaviors mentioned in the Scripture above. We will…
… Love money, because we want more and more so we’ll have all we desire;
… Boast, because we want people to esteem us;
… Be prideful and think we should be allowed to do anything we want;
… Slander and abuse others so we look better and exalt ourselves;
… Disobey authorities because they impose limits on us;
… Not feel the need to thank anyone because we bring good things to ourselves;
… Be unholy, for we don’t live for God but only ourselves;
… Not love others in purity—selflessly—because it’s all about us;
… Not reconcile or forgive, because we’ve been hurt and they deserve to pay for it;
… Slander others so we’ll look better than they do;
… Have no self-control—why deny ourselves anything we want?
… Be brutal and mean, bullying others to get our way and stay on top;
… Despise true goodness, because it makes us look “less than”;
… Be traitors to God, the Word, and believers, shown by our lifestyle;
… Be headstrong, willful, demanding our own way;
… Be haughty, arrogant, and sure of ourselves, because we are “special”;
… Love pleasure (it makes us feel good) instead of loving God;
… Look spiritual and speak spiritual talk, even though we are fooling ourselves, because we have no real power in us—we have to generate our own power, and we do it in all these ways.

Tomorrow we’ll twist this concept a bit, and look at it from a different angle. Stay tuned!

“Jesus, forgive us for being lovers of ourselves instead of lovers of God. Many of us have a lifetime of living only for ourselves. Teach us a better way. Amen.”