Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 20 ｜ The Myth of Self-Love

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, happy Tuesday. I hope that you guys had a great weekend. I had a work slash fun trip in

00:00:07.940 Florida and my husband got to go with me this time. So that was really fun. I spoke to a non 1.00

00:00:13.420 political group actually, on Saturday morning about how to engage and motivate millennials

00:00:18.260 in the workplace. Public speaking, if I haven't already said this to you guys, public speaking

00:00:22.640 and presenting is one of my favorite things to do. I know for most people, you're like,

00:00:27.420 this is the bane of my existence, but I love it. It just gives me a lot of energy.

00:00:32.240 And plus this time it was at a beautiful beach and my husband was there with me. And actually

00:00:37.100 my mother and father-in-law were there too. So that was really fun. So it was just a great time. I

00:00:42.080 hope that you guys had a great weekend too. So today I'm going to talk about this subject of

00:00:47.520 self love. This is something that a lot of you have asked me to talk about, and I'm really excited to

00:00:54.500 get into it. I had a lot of fun actually planning this because it is no doubt a trend that has

00:01:00.400 infected every part of our society and unfortunately even Christian society. So I want to break down 1.00

00:01:07.240 the good, the bad and the ugly of self love and talk about how it lines up with what the Bible

00:01:13.020 actually has to say about how to view ourselves. But first, since it's the beginning of the week,

00:01:19.180 I want to make sure at least that you're a little bit up to date on what's been going on

00:01:23.640 in the news just so you can kind of be in the know. Now, as I'm recording this and by the time

00:01:28.820 that you are listening, I'm sure that more news will occur and has already come out because this

00:01:35.580 is a 24 minute news cycle. But this should still give you some kind of good overview of what people

00:01:42.000 are outraged about. And if you're not outraged, is it even 2018? So a lot happened last week that

00:01:49.740 carried on over the weekend. One of the things that people have been talking about is Peter

00:01:54.380 Strzok. I don't even know how to say his last name. There's like six consonants in a row. So

00:01:58.680 I'm just going to go with that. He testified before Congress last week. He was the FBI agent,

00:02:04.020 if you remember, who was having an illicit affair with former FBI lawyer Lisa Page. And he was caught

00:02:10.640 sending anti-Trump texts to Lisa Page about how they're going to, quote, stop him supposedly from

00:02:16.200 getting elected. He testified before Congress about his bias, which, you know, you're not supposed to

00:02:21.540 have if you're an FBI agent or at least don't talk about. Republicans, of course, were tough on him as

00:02:28.240 they should be. But most Democrats treated him like he was some kind of hero. And I mean that literally

00:02:33.440 one congressman even told Strzok that he should get a purple heart, which is completely disturbing and

00:02:41.000 really disrespectful to the men and women in the line of duty. Strzok was stupidly arrogant the 1.00

00:02:47.360 entire time and acted like he hadn't done anything wrong. But the reality is any FBI agent who showed 1.00

00:02:54.640 this kind of bias towards a presidential candidate, no matter what side of the aisle it was on,

00:02:59.500 should be ashamed of themselves. So there's that. Of course, people are still freaking out over

00:03:04.560 Kavanaugh, the potential Supreme Court justice that was nominated last week. We talked about that last

00:03:09.740 week. So-called journalists are writing absolutely ridiculous stories about how he uses his credit

00:03:17.060 cards, what condiments he uses, making fun of his volunteering, his faith, gasping at the fact that he

00:03:24.560 wants to uphold the Constitution. So we have all that and more to look forward to over the next few

00:03:31.560 months as he awaits his confirmation. President Trump also met with NATO last week, the North Atlantic

00:03:38.180 Treaty Organization, just in case you don't know, although I'm sure a lot of you do. It's an

00:03:42.820 organization of 29 countries based on the North Atlantic Treaty that was signed in 1949. 12, the 12

00:03:49.620 original countries signed, but they've added all the way up to 29 now, or they've added 17. Now it's 29.

00:03:57.400 It's basically an alliance that says, hey, if you're in trouble, we will help you out militarily.

00:04:02.560 All in all, NATO was a good thing, and it's important that we keep these alliances strong. But the reason you

00:04:07.840 probably heard about some drama about this is because President Trump has been pushing other

00:04:14.260 members in the alliance to cough up some more money towards defense. If you're in the alliance,

00:04:19.640 you're supposed to meet a certain spending threshold on defense. So other countries are supposed to

00:04:26.280 actually spend or reach that threshold so that they are actually able to help us if we are ever in a

00:04:33.000 some countries are not meeting that threshold. So Trump is like, what the heck? Plus, President Trump

00:04:39.640 rightly pointed out that Germany is paying Russia billions for gas and energy. Russia is not in the

00:04:44.980 alliance. So shame on Germany for that. But still, people are criticizing Trump for his harsh language

00:04:51.160 towards our allies that would possibly push them away. Trump and his defenders say that this is just what

00:04:57.640 it looks like to put America first. And let's hope that's true, because even though we want to be

00:05:03.160 tough, it doesn't help us to actually make enemies out of allies. So we will just stay posted on that.

00:05:09.280 Trump also met with Putin yesterday in Helsinki, which is in Finland, by the way. And there's going

00:05:14.680 to be a lot of continued talk about whether or not Trump is too nice to Putin. But again, that's another

00:05:19.940 story for another day. Just wanted to give you a really quick briefing. And I'm sure there's plenty of

00:05:24.960 news that I didn't cover. But those are some hot topics. And now you know that. OK, now to the good

00:05:31.720 stuff, self-love. So I don't even have to cite specific examples of this whole self-love thing

00:05:40.020 for you guys to know exactly what I am talking about. This is a trend and an attitude that I think

00:05:46.480 has been building for, I don't know, maybe five, probably even 10 years. This idea that the most

00:05:53.780 important thing in the world is for you to love yourself, to be confident in yourself, to be

00:05:58.480 comfortable in your own skin. And I'm sure strands of this attitude have existed forever and ever and

00:06:04.040 ever. But I'm really talking about it rising and being celebrated on social media most recently,

00:06:10.180 probably in the past decade. You hear it all the time. You can't learn to love other people unless

00:06:15.660 you love yourself. Or we hear a lot about self-care. You can't care for other people unless you care for

00:06:21.880 yourself first. This also comes in the form of saying, oh, just stay true to yourself. All your

00:06:28.500 opinions are justified because it is your truth. It's all about empowerment because apparently that's

00:06:34.440 what people need these days to just feel empowered. And not all of these things are necessarily bad,

00:06:42.500 but some of it, actually, I would say the vast majority of it is absolute garbage. It is complete 0.98

00:06:48.520 in total stupidity, OK? I get it, though. I understand why this kind of self-love mantra, 1.00

00:06:56.440 the mantra of, oh, I just love myself, is attractive. I understand why the non-Christian 1.00

00:07:01.340 world would want to go in this direction. It is a way to sound compassionate and caring while really

00:07:07.000 just serving yourself. So you can prioritize your own happiness, your own comfort, your own convenience

00:07:12.800 above the happiness, the comfort, and the convenience of other people and provide a really

00:07:18.180 virtuous sounding reason for doing so. It is a sanitized version of selfishness. That's all it is.

00:07:25.680 You can protect yourself from criticism when you know you're wrong because, well, you're just a free

00:07:30.660 thinker. You're just staying true to who you are. It's a way to be arrogant and self-absorbed while

00:07:38.780 sounding moral. So it makes sense why someone who believes that this life is all there is,

00:07:44.180 that their citizenship is here on earth, that fame, money, success, love, whatever are the highest

00:07:49.340 goals, it makes sense that they would think this way. Why wouldn't you love yourself above everything

00:07:54.960 else? Even in your humanitarian pursuits and good deeds, you do those things because it feels good,

00:08:01.220 because it serves you in some way. If your hope and identity is not in heaven,

00:08:05.400 is not in Jesus Christ, why wouldn't you always be looking out for what's best for you?

00:08:11.720 But for Christians, that outlook does not hold up next to how the Bible tells us to live.

00:08:19.360 And I hear too many young Christians today, especially young female Christians, promote some kind of

00:08:27.620 theological, and that's in scare quotes, by the way, theological version of this. They attempt to make

00:08:33.220 self-love sound biblical. Well, spoiler, for those of you who don't know, the Bible never commands us

00:08:39.940 to love ourselves. Not once. The Bible never mentioned self-care. The Bible never mentions

00:08:45.720 feeling comfortable in your own skin. The Bible never talks about empowerment. Now, look, I'm going

00:08:53.340 to get into why I think aspects of these things, like I've said, are biblical. Why being comfortable with

00:08:59.760 how God made you, the body God gave you, and being confident and empowered in some way are Christ-like

00:09:05.980 attributes. And I'll talk about legitimate struggles with insecurity and things of that nature. But I need

00:09:11.260 to get through this hard truth first. And that truth is, according to the Bible, it is not about you.

00:09:19.160 It's not about you. It's not about me. It's not about any of us. It is about Jesus. The entire Bible

00:09:26.140 is about him. All of history is about him. Everything is about him and giving him glory because of God's

00:09:31.820 incredible mercy. He has allowed us, those who believe in Christ, to be beneficiaries of his grace

00:09:36.920 by way of Jesus' saving death and resurrection. By his grace means that God didn't have to do that.

00:09:43.960 And sometimes I wonder if we actually understand that. Sometimes I wonder if we really get how little

00:09:50.400 we deserve God's love and salvation. I mean, it seems like sometimes we look at ourselves and think,

00:09:56.200 hey, you know what? I'm actually pretty lovable. It makes sense that God would love me. I mean,

00:10:02.960 come on. Or, you know, I really am a pretty good person. It's not that unbelievable that God would save me.

00:10:11.600 No, you're actually not. You're not lovable. And neither am I. We are not worthy of being saved.

00:10:20.920 Ephesians 2.1 says, before Christ saved us, we were dead in our trespasses and sins in which we

00:10:25.820 once walked. Dead. Romans 5.8 says that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Two verses

00:10:31.940 later, verse 10 says, Jesus died for us while we were enemies with God. That is the state of all of us

00:10:37.900 apart from Christ. Hostile to God, as Colossians 1.21 says. Separated from God, as Ephesians 2.12 says.

00:10:44.720 No person in the world who is apart from Christ has a reason to boast. And those of us who are in

00:10:50.320 Christ have no reason to boast outside of Christ. Galatians 6.14 says, but far be it for me to boast

00:10:57.920 except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me and I to the

00:11:03.160 world. Jeremiah 9.23 through 24 says, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom. Let not the mighty man

00:11:09.680 boast in his might. Let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him boast. Let him who boasts

00:11:15.380 boast in this, that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord who practices steadfast love,

00:11:21.580 justice, and righteousness in the earth. We are all guilty of this kind of pride, me included.

00:11:27.140 But 1 Peter 5.5 says, God opposes the proud. And yet this seems to be the pervasive attitude today,

00:11:34.120 especially like I said, among young Christians who have been conditioned to believe our entire lives,

00:11:39.420 just like young non-Christians through personalized technology, social media, that everyone gets a 1.00

00:11:45.260 trophy culture in which we grew up, even through helicopter parenting sometimes, that it's all about

00:11:50.260 us. Even that the Bible is about us, that the salvation story is about us, that in everything,

00:11:56.020 we need to be able to see ourselves in it and apply it to ourselves. Well, I hate to break it to you.

00:12:02.360 Actually, I don't. I like to break it to you. The Bible isn't about you. Now, do we have commands

00:12:08.760 that obviously are meant to apply to our lives? Yes. Are there lessons to be learned from the stories

00:12:14.740 in the Bible that should have an effect on how we live? Absolutely. After all, Jesus did come to earth,

00:12:22.000 die on the cross, and rise again that we might have eternal life. God did create

00:12:26.000 us and He loves us. So it's not like we're completely irrelevant. I'm not saying that we

00:12:31.240 should never see our lives and our own hearts reflected on the pages of Scripture. But I am

00:12:37.840 saying that we miss the point of Scripture. We miss the point of the gospel. We miss the point of

00:12:43.520 everything if we first see ourselves in God's Word. One of my peeves is when I hear a pastor or a

00:12:52.880 Bible study teacher put themselves in the place of people in the Bible. So, for example, you are Noah

00:13:02.860 building something, but you don't know why. Or you are like Ruth trying to find her Boaz. Or you are

00:13:09.380 David slaying the giant, except the giant is really that girl that talked badly about you. Now, I know some

00:13:16.520 of you are thinking, what's wrong with that? Well, what's wrong with that is you are not Noah. You

00:13:23.360 are not Ruth. You are not David. The first thing that we should see in every story in Scripture is

00:13:29.400 God. What God did, the character of God. What this story says about who God is. What we see in the story

00:13:38.180 of Noah's ark is God's faithfulness, not our own. What we see in Ruth is God's providence. What we see in

00:13:44.440 David and Goliath is God's strength. These stories are meant to show you what God is like. Do they speak

00:13:51.020 to human nature? Sure. Do we see resemblances of ourselves in Scripture? Absolutely. But the goal,

00:13:59.940 the point of every single story in the Bible is God, who He is, and His glory. And knowing about His

00:14:06.640 character does affect our own lives, how we think, how we feel. It should. It's meant to. In fact, it is in

00:14:12.500 focusing on His glory that we are changed. It's the looking away from ourselves and towards Him that

00:14:19.680 we receive all the benefits we stupidly look for in this whole self-love movement. When you only see 0.78

00:14:26.420 yourself in Scripture, when you only look for the ways God can benefit you or make you feel better,

00:14:33.140 you end up with some really bad theology. And theology that's going to end up really disappointing you.

00:14:40.180 So if I look to the story of Noah, for example, and apply it directly to my own life right now and

00:14:47.060 say, I am Noah, then I could say, see, I'm building this podcast. I'm building this audience. I'm

00:14:53.240 growing my Twitter following, whatever. I'm speaking to different groups. And I don't know where this is

00:14:57.800 going to lead. It's just like Noah. I know that this is what God is calling me to do. So if I read

00:15:05.000 the story of Noah and say, oh, this is exactly the same, God told him to build the ark and everyone's

00:15:10.240 laughing at him, but he's trusting in God that this is what he's supposed to do. And that's just

00:15:15.520 like me. I've got haters, but I'm just going to keep building and God's going to show all my haters

00:15:20.240 when I'm floating high up and they're all drowning, metaphorically, of course. And then God will give me

00:15:24.920 a rainbow in the form of a million dollar check. Okay. Maybe that'll happen, but what if it doesn't?

00:15:33.460 What, what if actually I don't end up succeeding in this? What if I fail? And this is ultimately

00:15:39.160 not the path that God wants me on. What if something happens to me or, or my family that

00:15:44.320 causes me to quit this? What if nothing goes as planned? And this thing that I'm building is

00:15:49.720 actually destroyed. Well, then my comparison of myself to Noah doesn't really work. Does it?

00:15:56.220 Then I start to think, wait, is God really faithful? Is the story of Noah even true?

00:16:02.420 Why did that work for Noah, but not for me? Are God's promises really reliable? We start to question

00:16:08.840 God's goodness because things didn't go as planned. And if we ever question God's goodness, something that

00:16:15.300 by the way, I've been guilty of doing, we probably all have at some point, something is wrong with us,

00:16:21.960 our thinking, our theology, not with him. When we primarily look for ourselves in scripture rather

00:16:29.260 than God, we end up with disappointment. But if we look for God rather than for ourselves, we end up

00:16:36.080 with hope. Because even though we, in our life circumstances change, God doesn't. So if we go back to

00:16:43.140 the Noah example, if in the story of Noah, I see not my own efforts to build something, but I see God's

00:16:48.980 faithfulness, then instead of saying, wow, this story means I'm going to be successful and God's

00:16:54.720 going to take down my critics. I can say, wow, this story shows me how incredibly faithful God is in

00:17:02.440 keeping his promises. And that last one is so much more comforting than the thought that I might succeed

00:17:09.340 to be famous one day. That's an abiding comfort, not dependent on what happens in my life. And yes, sure,

00:17:17.300 I can look to Noah and say, man, that's an obedient guy. I want to emulate that kind of obedience in my

00:17:23.460 life. And man, he trusted in God, even when I'm sure things seemed absolutely insane. Like, how do you keep

00:17:30.460 your cool when two pythons slither onto your boat? That's what I want to know. I want to have that kind of faith.

00:17:35.260 But the point is that application flows first from recognizing God's power, his authority,

00:17:42.280 and his faithfulness. And our obedience and God's faithfulness are principles that outlast

00:17:51.140 every situation in our lives, no matter what. But the idea that like Noah, we're going to build

00:17:58.420 something and God's going to bless us doesn't. It doesn't last. And ultimately, that kind of thinking

00:18:05.220 like I said, leads to questioning God and his goodness. Whenever we find ourselves questioning

00:18:11.400 those things, we need to ask for wisdom, ask for understanding, ask for the Holy Spirit to search

00:18:17.200 our hearts. We need to search scripture ourselves and see what it is that we don't get or haven't yet

00:18:22.900 learned. James 1 5 says, you guys know this, God gives wisdom to those who ask for it. So that's the

00:18:29.060 direction we need to head, not into ourselves or onto social media or the world who's going to tell us

00:18:34.440 something that's not true. So this concept or this trend of self-love extends beyond a superficial call

00:18:41.680 for confidence. It pervades Christianity when it leads to this idea of self-truth. When we put

00:18:50.540 ourselves in the center of the Bible story rather than Christ, we end up coming up with interpretations

00:18:56.900 of scripture that are not true. And ultimately, they leave people astray. This is like the millennial 1.00

00:19:03.540 version of the prosperity gospel, I think. Millennials fall into this category of something

00:19:08.060 called postmodern. It's a concept that promotes individualism, this idea that you are your own

00:19:14.240 arbiter of morality, your own truth, and what is good and bad is up to you. What is right and wrong

00:19:21.700 is up to you. And while I am a fan of individualism from a more political, politically conservative

00:19:28.100 standpoint, the idea of working hard rather than relying on the government, individualism when it

00:19:32.960 comes to morality and in particular theology does not work. Truth is not subjective. You do not get

00:19:40.200 to decide what you want to uphold in scripture and what you don't. We do not get to decide on what right

00:19:46.160 and wrong is. As Christians, we believe God tells us those things. So it's not up for debate. We don't

00:19:51.600 make compromises. And while we certainly study well-researched theology and context and history

00:19:58.320 and all of these things that rely in large part on human intellect, we don't get to freely decide

00:20:04.440 what a passage means and what it doesn't based on our feelings about how we think the world should work.

00:20:10.940 Millennials don't like to be inconvenienced, though. We don't like to be told when we're wrong.

00:20:15.080 We definitely don't like talking about sin or hell or all of these very objective and

00:20:20.640 quote, judgy things, which is why so many young people have adopted this feel-good,

00:20:25.980 social justice, self-love, postmodern Christianity that really just says, love yourself, do what makes

00:20:32.780 you happy, be nice to people, and protest the right political causes when it's convenient to you.

00:20:38.780 But that's not biblical. The Bible says deny yourself. The Bible says take up your cross and

00:20:44.600 follow Christ. The Bible says, yes, fight for the oppressed, but not for social justice,

00:20:49.200 which, like we discussed last week, even though it claims to fight for the oppressed,

00:20:54.660 it actually just demeans one group of people to elevate another group of people based on some

00:20:58.860 subjective standard, which is not biblical. God calls us to something much higher and much better

00:21:04.140 than this worldly trash that some Christians are packaging as biblical. We have to watch out for 0.98

00:21:10.980 this because it sounds good. But remember, 1 Corinthians 11, 14 says that even Satan disguises himself as an

00:21:18.220 angel of light. How do you know you're being deceived? You don't. That's the whole point.

00:21:24.320 And this quasi-theological love yourself, make yourself feel good. Jesus exists for you. The

00:21:29.260 Bible is about you. Nonsense sounds good because it uses scripture like I did with the story of Noah

00:21:35.640 to cater to your selfishness. Female Bible study leaders and teachers are the worst about this. 1.00

00:21:42.500 They're the worst. That is why I have always, even when I would say that I myself wasn't walking in 0.98

00:21:49.160 step with Christ, have had a problem with a lot of women's Bible studies. This feel-good, emotional, 0.99

00:21:55.360 self-centered stuff actually isn't helping anyone. How we see this played out is a lot of times through

00:22:01.720 what we call word of faith teachers. These are charismatic teachers who say that you can basically

00:22:06.560 access God and God's power through a word of faith. So for example, by crying out Yahweh,

00:22:13.580 all of your fear will be eradicated or by extending your hand and saying, be healed, that the world will

00:22:18.080 be healed. This is a false doctrine. Not that the power of prayer doesn't work. It does. Not that God

00:22:23.000 doesn't heal through prayer or work miracles. He absolutely can. But saying a word and expecting it

00:22:29.860 in itself to hold power isn't biblical. A similarly, a false message we see that's related to this is

00:22:39.020 saying, I have a word for you today. Well, unless you're talking about God's word, no, you don't.

00:22:45.160 We don't have words apart from God's word. Yes, the Holy Spirit moves and works and speaks through us,

00:22:50.540 convicts us, empowers us, strengthens us, but only in accordance with scripture. We do not receive

00:22:57.220 separate special revelations that are not biblical. This whole idea of, oh, I have a divine revelation

00:23:03.760 from God to go tell this random person on the street that there will be $5 under their pillow

00:23:07.900 tonight. No, this is just a modernized version of the televangelism that we saw in the 80s and 90s,

00:23:14.220 where the televangelists would say, I feel that there's someone in the audience whose leg needs

00:23:19.720 healing. I just don't think that that's biblical. I think it's actually very emotionally manipulative.

00:23:24.660 I recently saw a very prominent Christian social media influencer and now Bible teacher apparently

00:23:32.100 do this. She posted a video saying that God told her that someone in her audience was dealing with

00:23:36.980 something at XYZ. I mean, sure, pretty smart to hedge your bets that someone in the audience of

00:23:44.720 millions and millions of people that follow you is probably going through something. But again,

00:23:48.800 let me be clear. There is no revelation we receive that is not backed up by scripture.

00:23:54.760 That means that does, or I guess the question is, does prophecy exist? Yes, I think prophecy exists,

00:24:01.280 and we could go on a whole tangent here. But there's a great sermon by John Piper on this from

00:24:06.240 1990, where he explains very well that prophecy today exists in a way that is prompted by the spirit,

00:24:12.620 but is still fallible. He says it like this, prophecy today and in the New Testament is spirit

00:24:16.860 prompted, spirit sustained utterance that does not carry intrinsic divine authority and may be mixed with

00:24:22.540 air. He also points out that prophecies or any spirit sustained utterance must be tested by

00:24:28.260 scripture. It does not have the same authority as scripture, which as it currently is, scripture is

00:24:34.560 final and sufficient. But that's kind of, like I said, going off into a new territory and we could do a

00:24:39.540 whole episode on that later. And there's plenty of stuff that I still need to learn about it. But the

00:24:44.300 point is this self-centered Christianity leads to bad theology, which leads to a manipulation of

00:24:50.660 the gospel and any gospel presented to you that is not found explicitly in scripture, namely that

00:24:56.320 Jesus, a part of the triune Godhead, one with God himself, the son of God came to earth voluntarily

00:25:01.700 to die for your sins, reconciling believers to God and rose again, defeating sin and death and will

00:25:06.820 one day come back and will one day defeat Satan once and for all and reign in totality,

00:25:11.380 banishing suffering, confusion, sin and death. Any gospel apart from that is not a true gospel.

00:25:17.280 That is the gospel. That is hope. And by God's grace, we get to be beneficiaries of that gospel.

00:25:22.480 And it is through a deeper understanding of that. It is through meditation on that,

00:25:27.380 that we are made new, made better, are sanctified, are given peace and joy through our closeness with

00:25:32.280 Christ and our hope of what's to come. It is that message that gives us confidence.

00:25:36.860 I know there are some of you, if you're anything like me, who have gone through seasons of deep

00:25:42.420 insecurity, of joylessness, of anxiety, of depression. These are real emotions that have

00:25:48.280 damaging effects on your psyche, on your life. We go through loss, rejection, sickness, persecution,

00:25:54.680 all these things that make us feel desperate and even tempt us into self-pity. We struggle.

00:26:01.120 Sometimes we actually do struggle to see anything good about ourselves. Sometimes we do actually hate

00:26:06.140 ourselves. Sometimes maybe we do struggle with seeing why God would send Jesus to die for us.

00:26:12.500 Haven't we done too many bad things? And so this self-love, empowerment, self-care message can sound

00:26:19.300 especially appealing to us during those times. But it's not self-love that we need. In fact,

00:26:26.480 focusing on yourself only makes it worse. It is by focusing on God that we are free to be comfortable

00:26:32.500 in our own skin and confident in who we are as people made in God's image and as completely

00:26:37.460 undeserving objects of his love. It is by focusing on God's goodness, his character, his salvation,

00:26:44.100 his grace, his call to self-denial, self-crucifixion, generosity, hospitality, selflessness,

00:26:49.980 that we learn to see ourselves as he sees us. And it is true that God calls us beautiful. Psalm 139 says

00:26:57.100 that we're fearfully and wonderfully made that he actually took time knitting us together in our

00:27:01.900 mother's wombs. And for those of us who are believers, Ephesians 1 says that he chose believers

00:27:07.260 in him before the foundation of the world. So he had us in mind when he created the universe.

00:27:13.320 We serve an awesome, gracious, merciful God who, even though he doesn't have to, loves us and gave us

00:27:21.540 a way to be redeemed through Jesus. So that is where our confidence comes from. So I can say,

00:27:27.500 hey, I am worth something because God says that I am. And I find my worth in my creator,

00:27:32.300 not in my appearance or other people's affirmation. So I can say, hey, I like my body because I know

00:27:38.760 whether I look perfect by the world's standards or not. I know that God gave me this body. And because

00:27:44.440 of that, all I can do is be a good steward of it and thank him for what he's given me. That gives

00:27:49.320 me confidence. I can say, hey, I know that I'm good at public speaking or I like public speaking.

00:27:55.140 I know I'm a good writer, that I'm a decent communicator. These are the talents that God

00:28:00.360 has given me. And all I can do is cultivate them, be the best that I can, use them for his glory.

00:28:05.220 They're not mine to use. They're his to use as he sees fit. There's nothing wrong with that. And in

00:28:10.740 fact, I would argue that that is the only righteous biblical way to see yourself. It's not self-aggrandizing

00:28:17.420 and it's not self-deprecating. It's I was made in the image of God and Jesus has made me a new

00:28:23.420 creation. And as such, God has purposed me for something. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's

00:28:29.220 speaking and being on TV. Maybe it's being a missionary in the Congo. Maybe it's being a

00:28:33.420 stay at home mom. But whatever it is, whatever I do, it is for the glory of God. We are free to

00:28:39.300 recognize that it's not about us. It is liberating to realize that, that I don't have to worry about how

00:28:46.400 much I love myself because God loves me. And while I do think it's important to recharge and

00:28:52.000 genuinely enjoy life and, and take time to relax, God did make us to rest and to sleep. After all,

00:28:58.200 um, I don't have to obsess over self-care because God cares for me. I just have to follow what he says

00:29:04.840 when it comes to rest and releasing anxiety, especially, and go to him for strength and for

00:29:10.360 wisdom. And he will care for me. I am called to obey God and he's going to worry about the rest.

00:29:15.820 That is a wonderful freeing thing. So that's that. Um, I hope that that helped. I hope that

00:29:23.020 that answered the question thoroughly enough about what I think about self-love and, and all of its 1.00

00:29:28.440 kind of theological stupidity. Um, but if you still have questions, please feel free to email me.

00:29:33.220 Um, it's Allie at the conservative millennial blog.com. You can also message me on Instagram. I check that

00:29:39.620 pretty periodically, or if you want me to address something different in the future, please feel free

00:29:43.700 to message me on Instagram, or if you have any criticism, uh, constructive criticism or feedback,

00:29:49.180 uh, please contact me. If you would like to leave a positive review, please do so. Don't forget to

00:29:54.520 subscribe to CRTV.com if you haven't already. So you can see my lovely face as I am giving these

00:29:59.660 podcasts. But anyway, I love you guys and I will see you back here on Thursday.

00:30:03.720 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 17, 2018

Ep 20 ｜ The Myth of Self-Love

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