Happy Memorial Day friends,

I want to express my deep appreciation for the men and women who have sacrificed their lives for our freedom. I also want to reach out to the mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, children, brothers and sisters, who have lost a loved one in the armed services and tell you that I am praying for your peace and comfort during this time.

This weekend, I spent most of my time starting my new book. I deeply value your prayers. I cannot do this without them. There is so much I want to say without repeating what I’ve already written, yet it’s hard to sort through everything. Please pray I say exactly what God wants me to, and if any of you out there would like to read some sample chapters to give me your feedback, let me know. I would welcome that.

Also, I’m having trouble with my Outlook. It is very slow and not responding much of the time which makes working very tedious. If any of you know a solution to that, please let me know. You can e-mail me privately at leslie@leslievernick.com.

Here is a question I think we all can relate to, especially in light of my recent newsletters on self image.

This week’s question: My counselor tells me I need to love myself more and need to improve my self esteem. The Bible says that I’m not to think too highly of myself. So which is it? Do I love myself enough or too much?

Answer: That can be a trick question for many Christians. The Bible isn’t against loving ourselves. In fact, it assumes it. For example, when the apostle Paul tells husbands to love their wives as their own bodies (Ephesians 5:28) or when Jesus tells us to love our neighbors as ourselves (John 13:34), there is an assumption of natural self-love or concern for our own well-being that is common to all of us. Proverbs also tells us that he (or she) who acquires wisdom, loves his own soul (Proverbs 19:8).

However, as Christians we’ve often associated loving self with rampant selfishness and egocentricity which is clearly against what God’s word teaches. So let’s look at what biblical self-esteem and self-love would look like.

First, self esteem is the way we feel about ourselves; self image is the way we think about ourselves. Since our thoughts and feelings go together, if we think too highly of ourselves, we will have an inflated self-esteem. On the other hand, if we think too lowly of ourselves, we feel inferior and worthless. A healthy self-image is where you see yourself truthfully, as God sees you.

That means that you see your beauty and your sins and don’t only see one side of yourself. Some Christians get caught in only seeing their sinful side and forget that they are indeed a magnificent creation of God (Psalm 139) and that God has indeed put gifts and talents inside of them to be used to serve him and others. On the other hand, some people are quite blind to their sinful side and can be jealous, prideful, arrogant and judgmental and don’t even see how sinful those things are (Psalm 36:2).

When you love yourself too much, the focus of life is on you, either how wonderful you are and how much you deserve, or on how miserable you are because life, people or God aren’t giving you everything you think you should have. When you love yourself biblically here are three things you would do:

1. You would seek God as your highest priority. God says that he is our soul’s only true satisfaction (Psalm 21:6) and that following his ways lead to great joy (Psalm 19:8; 1 Peter 1:8).

2. You would seek God’s wisdom for your life. Proverbs tells us that those who fail to find wisdom, harm themselves (Proverbs 8:36). God says that his wisdom helps us see clearly through the world’s philosophies and Satan’s deceptions that may mislead us.

3. We will correct and discipline ourselves. At first, this may seem counterintuitive. People think that when they love themselves then they can indulge themselves because they feel so special or entitled. Credit card debt, obesity, sexual promiscuity, pornography, drug abuse and alcoholism are at all time highs. Not only do we indulge our fleshly appetites, we also indulge our immature and sinful ways of thinking, feeling, and behaving. We sulk in self-pity, throw temper tantrums when we don’t get our way, nurse angry and hateful thoughts and wallow in our morbid self-analysis.

The results of a self-indulgent psyche or lifestyles are not happiness and good self-esteem but bondage. When we indulge our sinful nature, we don’t feel better; we feel worse. God tells us one of the causes of self-hatred is ignoring discipline (Proverbs 15:32).

So, I can’t answer your question on what your counselor meant, but, by looking over these applications, you can evaluate where you are in loving yourself biblically and seeing yourself truthfully. Ask God to show you areas where you need to grow.

For more information on this topic, see my book How to Find Selfless Joy in a Me First World.