When we are emotionally healthy, all of us have a rather high regard of ourselves. It is natural and normal to enjoy the beauty of self-love. Although the Bible does not stroke self-love, it does not deny its validity either. What it speaks out against is selfish love, a love of ourselves that is exclusive of God and of others ... a love that has its priorities wrong. Whereas self-love is beautiful, selfish love is not.

In order to have the beauty of self-love, the Bible states that we must get our love priorities in order. The first object of our love must be God. The love God wishes demands the action of our whole personality. All of our being: moral, emotional, intellectual, and physical must go into our love of God. Only this is completely acceptable to God, and only this is adequate for his shaping of our lives. When we give God a mere fraction of ourselves, God himself becomes a mere fraction of what he might be to us.

Jesus not only wants to be in our lives but desires to be the master of our lives. He wants to be in the driver’s seat. If your life were likened to your automobile, where would Jesus’ place be in it? Would he be in the trunk like the spare tire only to be called forth in an emergency? Would he be in the back seat only being consulted occasionally for advice? Or, does he sit beside you, one with whom you have regular conversation? Or is he in the driver’s seat, at the controls, guiding your life in the direction he wants it to go?

When God is loved first and foremost and when we enjoy the beauty of a loving God, we can then enjoy the beauty of loving our neighbor. The word love in the Bible does not necessarily mean a personal liking, a sentimental affection, but rather it suggests our active good will in behalf of our neighbor. In other words, God says we are to love everyone even when we might not be able to like everyone.

Jesus’ parable of the Good Samaritan is a great model of neighborly love. The Samaritan overstepped all existing borders to do concrete costly acts of love, even to one considered an enemy. The teaching of Jesus is clear - the love of a neighbor has no boundaries.

Now we are at the point of insight. When we love God completely and have him guiding our lives and when we are enabled by God’s love for us to extend our love to all neighbors, we are now more able to enjoy the beauty of self-love. For we see our importance and our worth with the eyes of God, a God whose Son was not too high a price to pay to reclaim us. If God loved us so much, we can certainly love ourselves.

We are also able to love ourselves more when we let God rid our lives of feelings of hate for other people through the practice of neighborly love. And as we hate others less, as we are uncomfortable with others less, as we love others more, psychologically we will hate ourselves less, can be more comfortable with ourselves, and enjoy more of the beauty of self-love.

Innately we all have a sense of self-love essential for preservation. He has given us the gift of eternity through our Lord Jesus Christ and wants to bless us daily as we love and devote ourselves to him. And as we love God and our neighbor, our natural self-love moves out of the realm of selfishness. For you see, it is no longer exclusive, directing all energies inward. Now it is inclusive, for it is a love with priorities straight. God first, others second, and ourselves third. The beauty of God-love, the beauty of neighbor-love, the beauty of self-love, together they comprise the beauty of Christian love.