Love Thyself! 

              Overcoming the stronghold of Self-rejection:  MAIN HEALING LESSON 18

This teaching on learning to really accept yourself is just one of the 24 lessons in our workbook for personal transformation, "Matters of the Heart."  All 24 lessons will be helpful to the person seeking restoration and freedom and have been posted on this web site. They are available as a complete set in our workbook which can be purchased as a download or ordered through the mail. The lessons are also available on CD and DVD as 24, 1/2 hour teachings. All scriptures are from the NKJV unless otherwise noted.
 

Introduction  

Why we begin rejecting ourselves
In the previous lesson we explored the emotional damage that rejection by others can cause and the effective remedy that Jesus brings us through faith in His revelation of our Loving Father who will never reject or forsake those who desire His salvation. Not knowing our true security in God, when others rejected us (by thoughts, words or deeds), the power of that pain may have carried us into rejecting ourselves. The truth is that unless we truly believe in our heart of hearts that it is a great good thing to be who we are just as we are, we have been robbed. Did you know that Jesus actually expects us to love and accept ourselves—just as He does? Why else would He take love of self as a standard for how we are to love others?

Jesus said to him, "'You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'  On these two commandments hang all the Law and the Prophets."  Matthew 22:37-40

These words of Jesus carry a curious fulfillment. We are to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. But what if we don’t love ourselves? Not loving ourselves will limit and set obstacles to truly loving others. And it happens in this way: if I am angry with myself, it will spill out onto others as frustration with them. If I haven’t learned to receive mercy for myself over my brokenness, I will become judgmental of others. If I cannot entrust my life to God, I will tend to become fearful for and controlling of the ones I love. If I am critical towards myself, I will tend to be critical of others. It goes on and on, because the sad truth is that even though we try to manage it and make up for it and cover it up, we can only truly love others as we love ourselves. So, let’s learn to give grace to ourselves and rightly love ourselves in Christ and become grace givers to others. Take His command to heart: love thyself!
 

Teaching summary

A worthwhile life lesson
For many of us the ultimate challenge of the truly converted Christian life is learning to love the sinner and hate the sin. To help us God has assigned a sinner to each one of us to get to know intimately. We are to learn to love that sinner unconditionally, yet with a perfect hatred of sin—that sinner is you!  We need to bring ourselves to conversion about the gospel applied to our self.

Try taking this simple test
Ask yourself—can you apply 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 (the “love” chapter) to yourself?  

1) Are you harder on yourself than on others? Do you berate yourself?
2) Do you get angry with yourself easily? Depression counts as self-anger! 
3) Are there things about yourself that you dislike and can’t accept?
4) Are there things in your past that you just can’t forgive yourself for?
5) How do you talk to yourself when you have done something stupid?
Why would you think that treating yourself this way on the inside is normal?
 

Accepting the "unacceptable"

If we want to make peace within ourselves, will have to learn to accept the “unacceptable” things about ourselves. The good news is that our loving God already does! And this makes life so much easier--since they may be many things that need changing, but it doesn't help if we make ourselves miserable while we are waiting on God to work with us! There are many things about us that God is at peace with, but which we still fear and hate. Not being reconciled to God about these things being in our life the way they are, can keep us striving against ourselves. Complete self acceptance is always the starting point for entering into God’s good plans for our life and that is because acceptance with peace is God's way of getting going with us and it is meant to be our new way of getting going with Him.

Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation. Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God.  2 Corinthians 5:18-21

Carefully consider each one of these areas
After looking these over and praying for grace to accept yourself in these areas, read the "Digging Deeper" section in the Love Thyself! part 2 (Head to Heart Guide 18) to help you understand why each one of these can be accepted. Then go to the "Prayer Focus" section and really clear your heart. But wait, there's more: you will want to affirm with faith the declaration of self-acceptance that has already helped so many others in the "Putting Feet to Your Prayers/Stretch Yourself!" section.

There is one who hates you and will never stop putting you down—stop agreeing with him! Only the enemy wants you to hate yourself. The Holy Spirit wants to help you fulfill Jesus' command to love thyself. God loves you just as you are! It is a combination of pride and fear in us that demands perfection of us—beware of inverted pride. It acutally no better, nor more accurate, to have a deflated sense of self, than an inflated one. Related spirits are false humility, self-pity, rejection, insecurity, arrogance, and fear.

God says He knows enough about you to love you, but unrecognized pride says back to God, "If You knew me like I know me, You'd hate me too!" Humility says, "Since You love and accept me as i am, I will trust You for what I cannot see about me."

Pride goes before destruction, better to be of a humble spirit…  Proverbs 16:18-19

God's opinion about you is the only one that counts!

Are you listening to God? Or are you listening to your feelings, your understanding, your circumstances, your past failures? The kingdom of enthroned self looks inward due to rejection or a broken heart—it rejects God and His Word. However, if I reject myself I am also rejecting my Creator, since He is the One who has created me and is redeeming me. Rejecting self is also very damaging to our physical health, because it can produce the auto-immune diseases—in a very real sense, it tells your body it is OK to attack yourself.  

The kingdom of self-rejection is held in place by self-pity
Throw off the unholy trinity of self, sin and Satan bound together by self-pity. Consider all that self-pity does.

•    Self-pity binds you to the past and to pains. It amplifies every thought.
•    Self-pity will tell you that you are not loved and nobody understands you.
•    Self-pity is a total denial that you have a God who actively cares for you.
•    Self-pity says, “What was done to me, I can’t get over.”  It makes Satan your lord.

We are not to be pitied
Being saved by God through Christ means that we are not to be pitied because we have a God who saves, delivers, prospers, heals, and provides—all according to our real needs being watched over by His love and wisdom for us. Please read the article on Confidence in God to see how great  His love for you is. You have won the "spiritual lottery"--it is the ones who don't know this God and who reject His offer of salvation, who greatly to be pitied.

Are you prepared to take your life back from this unholy kingdom?
You have to be ready to fight to be free—self-pity is the super glue of hell.

Live according to who you are going to be rather than who you have been.
      (Pastor Henry Wright, Be In Health)

I am not what I was. I am not what I will be.

I am being changed from glory to glory.

And God is loving me full throttle all along the way! 

 

Interested in going deeper?

Don't just give these truths a "head bob"!
For further study and for help working these truths into your heart and life, see Love Thyself! part 2 (Head to Heart Guide 18) and "work out" with exercises, discussion questions, review of main points, digging deeper, more scriptures, model prayers, renunciations/affirmations and practical steps of life application.

Or better yet, let us minister to you in person
     --at one of our Savannah Seminars...