Quite a few years ago I attended a healing seminar – a Pastoral Care Ministries seminar with one of my mentors and some dear friends at Wheaton College in Wheaton, Illinois. I was new in my healing journey so it had a profound effect on the trajectory of my life and the way I viewed myself.  I was steeped in codependent patterns and had a totally distorted view of what it meant to love myself. Leanne Payne, the speaker and well-known author had an intense love and reverence for the cross of Christ. Each evening session we opened with a procession down the aisles as the cross was high and lifted up, presenting it up front to the people attending the seminar. There was a holy hush that permeated the crowd. I remember the look on Leanne’s face as she beamed with awe, gratefulness and honor. I experienced a reverence and holiness for God at a depth that I had not felt before, marking me for life. 

One of the subjects that she talked about was this virtue of self-acceptance. I hadn’t heard that preached much as self-acceptance was primarily described in distorted images of self-indulgence, narcissistic behavior and selfishness. There’s sort of a paranoia that seeps into conversations when it broaches the subject of loving ourselves. After all, didn’t Jesus say die to self? Nothing close to what she was talking about. She talked about it from the standpoint of identity: “Every time we more fully understand and accept our true identities in Christ, forgive another, or confess a sin, barriers to our becoming mature disciples – all we were created to be – fall down!” Imagine that, it’s when we learn to love and accept ourselves and see who we are through God’s eyes – the walls come tumbling down.

A Barrier in our walk with Christ

I couldn’t agree more. As I sit with clients, this is often the topic of our session. It seems as though having a self-loathing view of self somehow elevates them in God’s eyes. I will often ask them how they feel about themselves. Many look at me with a blank stare, some get really uncomfortable and others ashamedly confess they don’t like themselves very much. As Leanne explains, it is one of the barriers in our walk with Christ. Not loving ourselves and understanding what Jesus says about us keeps us trapped in our own self-hatred. We become our own judge, jury and executor as we look within our inner world instead of looking up and out to what Jesus is saying about us. It is absolutely impossible to love others with the love of Jesus without first allowing his love to flow through us. It’s a scene from the story of the cross. In John 15, Jesus says that He wants us to experience the same love that He experienced from his Father here on earth – so He modeled going to Him to receive His love, His nurture and His nourishment, walking away empowered to love others. And what did God say to Jesus at his baptism for all to hear? “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” 

We often want to by-pass ourselves because the pain is too great because of a “needless and ongoing sense of guilt and shame, even more critically, an intense and pathological self-hatred.” Many of us have come out of dysfunctional homes and places where evil has openly or subtly run rampant, ravaging our spirits and soul. Having been robbed of the most basic needs of childhood pleasures or even experiencing childhood itself. As a result, what we end up offering to others is a love that is distorted, self-centered and less than what is intended. It feels easier to love others than it does to love ourselves. It’s understandable, we have created defense and coping mechanisms as well as moving into self-preservation doing whatever we could to stay safe – not even consciously aware of it. All through our childhood we have been forming belief systems about ourselves, life, love, and authority; the world from a child’s perspective based on how we experienced life. Many of us are still living from those perspectives and some of us are living with the message that we are not enough, we are unlovable, and unwanted. We mistakenly called this “dying to self.” But, what it has become is a barrier of disconnection to God. 

Embracing Healing and Wholeness

I have good news for you today! Jesus paid for every bit of that pain. It’s not enough to read about it, because of the way our brain is wired, we need to experience it. How do we do that? There’s a thousand ways that Jesus heals us (Ps 130:7) and one of the ways is to bring those self-loathing messages to Jesus. Sometimes it is difficult for us to do it on our own and that’s okay – we are the body of Christ. It’s our jobs as believers to help each other discern what those barriers are and through prayer together ask for God’s healing. This is at the heart of Emmaus Road Ministries and the ministry that we offer. It starts with knowing that your heart matters and you are to love yourself. Don’t let the religious spirit of the day tell you that you must hate yourself and love your neighbor. So what love are you loving your neighbor with? Rather, as you love Jesus, bring every protest about yourself and every hesitation to Him – reconciling with yourself and with Him – it is with that agape love that you can then turn and love your neighbor. Everything comes from Him. 

True religion is the union of the Spirit of God with the human spirit, and this is effected in and through Jesus Christ. You are one with Him. “Jesus is the mediator between God and man. He reveals the Father, unites us with the Father, and comes with the Father to make His home with us.” (John 14:21-23). We are never alone. 

How many of you find yourself in the throws of self-hatred with self-loathing thoughts? Join us as we continue to take a deeper dive into the three barriers in our walk with Christ; self-acceptance, forgiveness of sin and failure to receive forgiveness.