LOVE OF SELF FOR GOD | Northstar Church

Summary: In the mid-1100s, Bernard of Clairvaux, a monk in France, considered how we experience the love of God. He published a devotional called the Love of God, in which he identified four degrees, or progressions: (1) loving ourselves for our own sake, (2) loving God for our own sake, (3) loving God for his own sake, and (4) loving ourselves for God’s sake.

Bernard of Clairvaux was a monk who followed very strict disciplines. His devotional classic, The Love of God, explains divine love and how we grow and develop in the perfect love of God that has come to us in Jesus Christ. In it, he presents the Four Degrees of Love. His fourth stage of maturity is the love of self for God’s sake.

If you have spent any time in church, you have heard the commandment in Mark 12:30-31: “And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’No other commandment is greater than these.” We work very hard to love God, and we try very hard to love our neighbor. But we often miss the two words at the end, “As yourself.” How well do we do in loving ourselves? We are not all that good at loving ourselves because we are investing all our time in loving God and loving others.

God’s love enables us to love ourselves, a common and significant concept in Christianity. It’s not about self-worship or narcissism but rather about recognizing our inherent worth and value as beings created in God’s image. In this context, loving ourselves means accepting ourselves, our imperfections, and our growth potential, knowing that God loves and values us. It is not because we suddenly realize that we are pretty great; in fact, we know that’s not true.

When we see how Jesus loves us, we can start loving ourselves well. And that is when we can truly love our neighbors. And indeed scripture tells us to do everything in love. But if we love God and ourselves through God’s love, our neighbors will see and feel the difference. When you are living out God’s love for yourself and then naturally to others, you don’t have to work very hard to convince them of anything. They will see it and be drawn to it naturally.

It’s important to learn to shut off the chatter of the outside world and love yourself for who you are today. The fact is that no one is perfect. Everybody has been created differently and, most importantly, in God’s image.

“It is not contrary to Christianity that a man should love himself, or what is the same thing, that he should love his happiness. Christianity does not tend to destroy a man’s love for his own happiness; it would therein tend to destroy humanity. Christianity is not destructive of humanity.” – Jonathan Edwards

Discussion Questions:

What does it mean to love yourself biblically, not selfishly? How does this understanding align with the concept of loving God and neighbor?