Love is in the air, and not just because it’s February. We live in a culture that is currently dominated by self-care. The self-care industry is booming with growth, reaching an estimated value of $13 billion by 2026, according to ASD Marketweek. Researchers have also noted that Google searches for self-care products have increased by 250% since 2017. At any given moment, you can turn on the radio or television, open a website, or listen to a podcast and feel the bombardment of the rapidly growing self-love movement. God Himself expects us to care for our bodies (I Corinthians 6:19-20) and minds (Philippians 4:8) properly as believers because we are the very temple of God. However, at some point in human history we crossed a deadly line when self-care became self-love. If we are honest with ourselves we know when that line was crossed, the very moment Eve reached for the forbidden fruit, she proclaimed more love for herself than for God. Through the centuries we’ve only gone from bad to worse. 

Self-love is the world’s latest quick fix for the emptiness and guilt that plague so many. And once again, Christians are being sucked into the vortex of Satan’s shiny, twisted lies. Satan’s specialty is twisting the truth into a palatable lie, and he’s good at it. Psalm 139 is the ultimate passage of Scripture, singing the glories of God’s ability, creativity, and love in creating us as humans. What care, precision, and craftsmanship He put into each and every one of us. Under Satan’s direction, the world has taken those marvelous truths and subtracted God right out, leaving us singing the glories of ourselves. Satan knows there is no satisfaction to be found in self-love, he knows that phrase is simply a coverup for pride and selfishness. Ironically the very sins that set him on his own deadly path to destruction is the very path he desires for everyone. 

You will not find a single verse in the Bible telling you to love yourself. When God says things like, “husbands love your wives as your own bodies” (Ephesians 5:28) and “love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), there is an understood assumption there, we already love ourselves! We should not interpret these verses to mean we better get busy loving ourselves better so we can love others, rather, in the same way we already love ourselves, we need to love others. Love for ourselves is manifested in a variety of ways. We go to great lengths to mitigate our suffering, whether it is taking medicine for a headache or feeding our hungry belly. When we need something, even something as insignificant as a tissue to blow our nose, we take the time to meet that need in the best way possible. We treat ourselves to our favorite shows, the music we like, our favorite sweatshirt, another cup of coffee, or ten more minutes of scrolling.

The real problem is that we have loved ourselves for so long (since birth) that we’ve become oblivious to the obvious. We don’t need more self-love in our lives to make us happy. We need more of God and His love! People who claim they have trouble loving themselves really mean they have trouble believing God’s love for them. People who say they can’t forgive themselves really mean they can’t accept God’s forgiveness. 

The next time you are feeling down on yourself, stop, and be honest about the situation, you are falling for one of Satan’s oldest tricks in the book. Don’t give him the satisfaction, turn your thoughts Godward through prayer or digging into the Scripture and repent of the real issue at hand, your momentary inability to believe God’s love and forgiveness. There is absolutely no greater love than the love God showed us when He made a way for us to experience His love eternally through the death, burial, and resurrection of His perfect Son, Jesus Christ. We need more gospel-focused moments in our day rather than self-focused moments. So in this month dedicated to love, let’s stop thinking about me and what I deserve and hone in on the gospel and God’s great love. Doing so is guaranteed to bring us much more satisfaction in the Lord than self-love ever will.