Then He said to them all, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.
Luke 9:23-24
To deny yourself means to say no to yourself, to refuse to give yourself what yourself really wants. Does that sound like God telling us to love ourselves, and make sure we care for ourselves, and esteem ourselves as special and important?
Jesus said that I need to deny myself and take up my cross if I will follow Him! This is the very opposite of loving yourself, caring for yourself, worrying about yourself.
Don’t look out only for your own interests – because we know you are doing that already, remember? But look out for, care for, and seek the good of others.
Let no one seek his own, but each one the other’s well-being.
1 Corinthians 10:24
This verse teaches the exact opposite of what the world teaches! To seek means to make an effort, or to try to accomplish something. God says you don’t need to make any effort, you don’t need to focus at all on yourself, on doing good for yourself – you and I will do enough of that anyway! Instead, focus on the good of others around you!
Promoting self-love is unbiblical, has no Scriptural foundation, and is unnecessary. It is also distracting to the real work of loving others. In short – it is a lie from Satan that you need to spend time and effort on loving yourself! Satan knows that you will care for yourself just fine, but if he can make you focus on yourself, lay down your cross, and forget about others, you will not and cannot be focused on serving Christ and others! And by the way, the ultimate way to love others is to share the gospel with them. What else could be more important to their well-being? But we cannot do that if we are focused on ourselves. A focus on self-esteem distracts from evangelism and discipleship.
The real way to love myself is to love God and love others. The real way to do the best for myself is to be involved in what God has saved me to do – good works for others. Caring for others is the ultimate way to care for yourself.
I have shown you in every way, by laboring like this, that you must support the weak. And remember the words of the Lord Jesus, that He said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”
Acts 20:35
If you want to be blessed, don’t spend your day focused on yourself. Spend your day focused on others. As we do this, we are more like Christ than in any other way. He gave His life for others – for you and for me and everyone. And we should do the same.
Care for yourself, yes. God assumes that. But focus on others. God commands that. And in doing so, be your true self that God made you to be. That’s the balanced view of self.
This post is a part of a series of posts that are excerpts from my book “Finding Your Midpoint: Locating the Balanced Positions for Your Life and Ministry” – available on Amazon or wherever books are sold.