Only by loving yourself in a healthy way, can you love others the way God intended. When you don’t love yourself you live with insecurity, and you keep looking to others for approval. When you don’t get it, your self-worth shrivels. As a result, you live far beneath your potential. You are the only person you can’t get away from, so unless you learn to accept yourself, you’ll be miserable. Stop and think about the last time you were around somebody you didn’t enjoy being with – how did it feel?

Whether good or bad, you project onto others the thoughts and feelings you have about yourself. So if you want people to think well of you, have a good opinion of yourself – one that’s based on God’s Word and nurtured by the right relationships. No question, the Bible cautions us about having an overinflated opinion of ourselves. But don’t go to the other extreme! Living with continual self-rejection is an open invitation to Satan, who is always “sneaking around to find someone to attack” (1Pe 5:8 CEV). Don’t play into his hands!

Paul writes: “Nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature” (Ro 7:18 NIV). That means the good qualities you do possess, are evidence that God is at work in your life. So be sure to acknowledge them. The Bible says, “We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us” (2Co 4:7). Instead of focusing on your flaws and feeling bad about yourself, recognize the “treasure” of God’s presence, power, and potential that lives within you, and build on it.