Self-Love Bible Study: How to Love Yourself in Truth

Inside: Dive into this self-love Bible study and learn how to love yourself biblically. Also, discover whether you truly love yourself as much as you think you do.

“I love and accept myself exactly as I am.” 

“I love who I am and all that I do.”

“I support myself and God supports me.”

A few years ago, a slew of affirmations like these took up a whole section of my journal. I was going through a rough time—with God, at work, in my relationship…really, in what felt like every major area of my life—and I hoped these affirmations would make me feel better.

But they didn’t because, as it turns out, affirmations don’t work. Not surprising, since you’re trying to convince yourself of something you low-key believe is a lie.

So I spent months telling my brain that I loved myself. But my brain wasn’t having it because all the evidence in my life said the exact opposite.

Of course, I didn’t know all this was happening. Instead, I just thought something was wrong with me because affirmations seemed to work for everyone else.

Eventually, I abandoned my useless affirmations and moved on to the next magic bullet on the mile-long list of things I was doing to try to fix my life.

None of them worked to help me love myself. Not one.

Not until I learned how to love myself biblically.

How Do You Love Yourself Right Now?

Ironically, I always thought I had a healthy love for myself. Even when I was wasting my time repeating those empty affirmations. Maybe you think so too. After all, you have evidence for it.

You’ve worked hard to create your dream lifestyle. You treat yourself well and regularly practice self-care. You’re sure you have healthy self-esteem and a good sense of your worth.

Except…maybe you don’t.

Back when I thought I loved myself, I was resigned to my toxic relationship. To keep letting my partner hurt me emotionally. Letting him turn everything around on me by accepting the blame and responsibility for every issue in our relationship. Always feeling not good enough for him but still striving to earn and deserve his love, all the while feeling unworthy of it.

You can see why my brain was confused about the true status of my self-love.

Even as you’re looking for a self-love Bible study, you might be in a similar unhealthy relationship—with a spouse, family member, or friend. 

“But,” you argue, “I stick it out in the relationship because I love them more than I love myself. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to do?”

Ah. We’ll come back to that shortly.

How Does God Love You?

Meanwhile, back when I was gritting my teeth through my thorny, painful relationship, I was also wrestling with God. You see, I’d been crying out to Him non-stop through my emotional struggles and He seemed deafeningly silent.

As you probably know by now, when you’re going through this kind of season, you start wondering if you’re special to God. Because if you were—if He truly loved you—surely He’d have rescued you by now.

Right?

“But God’s busy running the world,” you rationalize. “My problems are insignificant compared to the big, important stuff He has going on right now.”

Right?

You can see—what with the overwhelming evidence in your life—why you may feel low-level unloved and unloveable. Even if you don’t consciously acknowledge it.

So let’s dig into a self-love Bible study as a foundation for understanding how to love yourself. Through it, you’ll see what real self-love looks like—and doesn’t look like—in action.

Is Self Love Biblical?

Let’s just put it out there: Self-love generally has a bad rap in the Christian community.

This is because traditionally, Christians think it’s a sin. I sure used to! We think if we love ourselves, we’re bad Christians.

This is mostly because of the unconscious messages we received based on a misinterpretation of Scripture.

What Is Self-Love in the Bible?

Here are a couple of passages you’ve probably been led to believe mean you shouldn’t love yourself.

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.

2 Timothy 3:2-5 (ESV)

Wow.

On the surface, it seems like Paul bundled self-love with being abusive, unholy, and treacherous. It’s easy to see why you’d think self-love is bad.

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.

Philippians 2:3 (ESV)

Again, on the surface, Paul seems to be telling you to think of yourself as insignificant.

But hold up. Let’s dive a little deeper before we go off in the wrong direction.

First, doing some contextual research, ‘lovers of self’ in 2 Timothy 3 means being conceited, selfish, self-absorbed, self-centered, and self-promoting.

This isn’t self-love at all; it’s being overbearing and arrogant. When you understand this, the rest of the passage makes total sense. Because who wants to be that kind of person?

As for Philippians 2, counting others as more significant than yourself doesn’t mean thinking of yourself as insignificant and others as better than you.

If you do, you end up creating a ranking system, which then leads you to idolize some people. And, as you’ll remember from the second commandment, idolatry is a sin.

Instead, counting others as more significant means that you don’t obsess about yourself. It means you set selfishness aside and try to help others.

Do you get it?

The Bible is warning you against an unhealthy preoccupation with yourself, which is self-worship—a form of idolatry.

Bonus: As a bonus for joining my weekly newsletter, get this free download—The Instant Pep-Talk Pack. Its 8 Scripture cards are your personal, pocket-sized reminders of who God says you are and why you’re worthy of love—His and yours.

What Does the Bible Say about Self Love?

So what does the Bible say about true self-love? Let’s learn some useful lessons from 3 scriptures.

1. Love God first.

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

Matthew 22:37-39 (ESV)

According to Jesus, God should be at the top of your love list. Why? Because love comes from God (1 John 4:7-8).

He’s the originator of love, and the love you have for everything else flows from Him.

Next on your love list is yourself. Because how can you love your neighbor as you love yourself if you don’t know how to love yourself?

You cant! It’s impossible.

2. Love God’s creation.

I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.

Psalm 139:14 (ESV)

God’s creation is wonderful; He says so Himself seven times in Genesis 1.

Since you’re God’s creation—because He handmade you—you’re wonderful. This is the literal Bible truth, no matter what you or anyone else thinks.

Loving a wonderful thing is natural. Go ahead, try not to love something or someone you honestly believe is wonderful. I dare you.

You can’t do it.

So from this verse, you can see that loving yourself as God’s wonderful creation is normal, natural, and healthy.

3. Love yourself.

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church.

Ephesians 5:29 (ESV)

Jesus loves the Church—loves you—so much, He died to give you the opportunity to be part of it.

Related: 25 Who I Am in Christ Affirmations You Need to Know

Not loving what Christ died for—again…you—dishonors His sacrifice.

So as our 3 scriptures show, healthy self-love is natural and God-approved.

But let’s dig deeper still.

How to Love Yourself Biblically

As you now know, you can easily misunderstand self-love in the Bible. Thankfully, we’ve cleared up this issue.

But you probably also have some misconceptions about how to practice true love for yourself, especially in a biblical way. Let’s clear those up too.

Loving yourself doesn’t mean:

1. Being selfish—always putting yourself first and focusing solely, or even mainly, on what you want.
2. Being self-indulgent—doing what feels good, whenever you feel like it.
3. Treating yourself—getting massages, pedicures, facials, or other personal pampering. Any or all of which you may be using to create false happiness with yourself and find peace.
4. Ignoring your faults—which you do to avoid feeling bad about yourself.

I mean, real talk: do you treat people who you claim to love this way? If you do, is this real, honest love?

No, it isn’t.

And if this is how you’re loving yourself right now, then maybe you don’t truly know how to love yourself.

Loving yourself means:

1. Being kind to yourself.

Especially in the way you talk to yourself. This includes not saying mean things to yourself like, “I can’t believe I was so stupid and ridiculous.” Would you say this to someone you love? No, you wouldn’t.

Instead, with love for yourself and the grace of God, get curious about why you did what you did. Then say to yourself, “I see what I did there and I see why I did it. I’m sorry I did it and I wouldn’t choose to do it again.”

2. Keeping your word to yourself.

This means honoring the promises and commitments you make to yourself. Like power-walking around the block, as you promised yourself you would this morning. Or getting through the 2 hours of work-related reading you scheduled for this evening.

If you had made these promises to a friend, you wouldn’t ghost them when the time came. So don’t abandon yourself just because you don’t feel like doing what you committed to.

3. Doing what’s best for yourself, even if it hurts.

One way is not allowing others to demean God’s wonderful creation—again…you! Another is practicing self-discipline because it’s what’s best for you. For example, passing on the last cookie because you’re already stuffed and don’t need it.

I’m willing to bet this is how you treat your loved ones: you’re kind, you honor your commitments to them, and you do what’s best for them, even when they don’t like it.

Do you do the same for yourself?

If this is a hard question for you to answer, try this one instead: Is your relationship with yourself healthy, loving, and supportive?

Self Love in the Bible: How to Apply the Lessons

Let’s circle back around to those difficult relationships you’re persevering through like a champ. They’re important because they’re affecting your ability to truly love yourself.

You might believe you have to put up with them all because it shows that you love them more than you love yourself.

But is this really what you’re doing when you allow yourself to be emotionally abused? Are you truly loving them—doing what’s best for them—by enabling their disrespectful behavior towards you, God’s wonderful creation?

I’d say no, you’re not. You’re not loving them and you’re not loving yourself either.

But don’t sweat it. You can start loving yourself right now. Here’s how.

1. Start with God.

Focus on the fact that He unquestionably loves you, just as you are.

When you fully grasp this truth, you’ll find yourself overcome by His grace. You’ll start loving yourself simply because He so graciously and mercifully loves you.

I literally fell to my actual knees and sobbed with joy the first time I understood, deep down in my soul, God’s unconditional and unending love for me.

Related: God Doesn’t Love Me: 3 Reasons To Be Sure He Does

2. Know your worth.

God’s love for you makes you one hundred percent worthy and worth loving. So practice loving yourself by:

• Being kind to yourself.
• Keeping your commitments to yourself.
• Doing what’s best for you, especially when it’s hard.

3. Pay it forward.

When you understand how much God loves you, you’ll want to share your newfound love with others. Yes, even when they don’t deserve it. It’s what God Himself does.

But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!)

Ephesians 2:4-5 (NLT)

When you get it for real—deep down in your soul—you’ll be so awed by God’s love and grace that you’ll find yourself loving others even bigger and better than you already do.

A Self-Love Bible Study Resource

Now you know the truth: loving yourself is biblical when you understand what self-love doesn’t mean: self-indulgence, self-promotion, and selfishness.

Instead, we’ve learned from our self-love Bible study that it means loving yourself as God’s wonderful creation, as worthy of Jesus’ precious life, and as the Holy Spirit’s dwelling place.

Straight up, you’ll never learn how to love yourself biblically if you don’t start applying God’s word to your relationship with yourself. And how will you ever let yourself achieve and enjoy what you truly desire if you keep sabotaging yourself by low-level believing you don’t deserve them?

Instead, you need to go deep into your mind and heart and work with God to elevate your self-love and your life.

The 21-Day Self-Love Devotional is your guide for learning to love yourself the way God loves you, then watching in awe as self-love changes your life. Each day, it walks you through scriptures to help you get crystal-clear on the truth from God’s word about how to feel about yourself.

Get the Self-Love Devotional and use it to start loving yourself more like Jesus does.f

Put Your Self-Love Bible Study into Action

I could have spent a millennium repeating every single one of them. My self-love affirmations were never going to work because I was lying to myself the whole time.

But you know what did work? Learning about God’s love for me and because of it, seeing myself as worthy of love—especially my own.

So chuck your fruitless affirmations out the window like I did. Along with the countless other ways you’ve been using as Band-Aids to feel good about yourself. They won’t help you to truly love yourself.

Instead, sink into a self-love Bible study like this one and begin to practice loving yourself unconditionally, the way God does.

For I am persuaded beyond doubt (am sure) that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities, nor things impending and threatening nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 8:38-39 (AMPC)

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