John Cooper of Skillet posted a terrific message on Facebook yesterday.
https://connect.facebook.net/en_US/sdk.js#xfbml=1&version=v5.0
#marriagemonday I love this woman! However, it’s come to my attention that perhaps I’ve been doing marriage wrong for 22…
Posted by John L. Cooper on Monday, January 6, 2020
He nailed it! This is one of those things that seems to make sense on the surface. I’ve even heard Luke 10:27 and Matthew 22:37 used to justify the need for self-love. They’ve said, “how can you love God or your neighbor if you don’t first love yourself?”
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Luke 10:27
That path of thought has helped me to realize that my own lack of self-worth creates in me responses that are unloving. In my desire to feel good enough, I often have found myself putting others down or displaying ugly pride. So, I too have looked to love myself better at times. Along the way though, I realized that I don’t need to love myself as much as I needed to recognize how much God loves me.
Self-love takes us to a place where we’ll seek to find value in who we are or what we do. The right posture is to understand that we are hopeless without God, but He values us anyway. The response to that will be an overflow of love for God who first loved us, and then for His people.
The featured photo is a pic I took of John at WinterJam 2015 in Boise, Idaho.
What do you think?