Entry #10 - self-love is not bad for you

I feel like in the Christian world, there's a lot of confusion between self-love and 'the self'. Oftentimes in Christianity I feel like the self is seen as inherently evil with nothing good at all, and it simply needs to be crucified. When the self is talked about this way, I believe the Bible doesn't literally mean you, but instead refers to any part of you that has its origins in sinful nature and sinful nature itself. 

So any characteristics, thoughts, actions, ideas that originate in our sinful nature need to be crucified. I don't think Jesus literally meant we must crucify every part of us and hate every aspect of ourselves. I think that whatever is good in us, whatever is true, whatever is healthy, we should appreciate that in us because anything good must come from God because God is the source of all goodness. And whatever good in us is and can be fortified by God's power.

So when someone says self-love, I think that means it's okay to take care of yourself. It's okay to love who God made you to be. It's okay to appreciate how hard you've worked and how you've relied on Christ. It's okay to love how you look, to love how you speak, to appreciate your talents, to appreciate the things that make you who you are. 

I think Christianity should make a better word to explain what we must abhor. I wholeheartedly agree we should hate sin, to hate evil, to hate death and to not let it gain control over ourselves. But I don't think we are inherently evil. I think because God exists, we can be good. No one is born a lost cause.