How Do You Feel About Yourself?
You Are Royalty: Learning to Love Yourself the Way God Intended
There is a question worth sitting with today, one that cuts deeper than it might first appear: How do you feel about yourself?
Not how you perform at work. Not how others perceive you. Not whether you checked off every item on your spiritual to-do list this week. How do you actually feel about yourself, in the quiet moments, when no one is watching and the voices in your head have full run of the place?
For many of us, the honest answer is uncomfortable. We beat ourselves up. We rehearse our failures. We tell ourselves we are not disciplined enough, not holy enough, not good enough. We look at the gap between who we are and who we think we should be, and we let that gap define us. The enemy of our souls is more than happy to help us do exactly that.
But here is what the Word of God has to say about all of it: love yourself. Not as a suggestion. As a command.
The Command We Overlook
In Matthew 22, a lawyer approaches Jesus with what he frames as a trick question, asking which commandment is the greatest of all. Jesus answers without hesitation. Love God with everything you have, heart, soul, and mind. Then He adds a second commandment, one He describes as being like the first, equal in weight and importance: love your neighbor as yourself.
That phrase, as yourself, is not decorative language. It is the standard. The way we treat ourselves is the benchmark for how we treat the people around us. And Jesus closes by saying that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Everything. The entire weight of Scripture rests on love, including the love we extend to ourselves.
We have heard plenty of sermons about loving God and loving others. But the middle part, loving ourselves, tends to get skipped. It feels vain. It sounds self-absorbed. Yet Jesus placed it right there in the equation, and He did not stutter.
What Love Actually Looks Like
Before we can understand what it means to love ourselves well, we need to understand what love actually is. First Corinthians 13 gives us the most complete picture in all of Scripture. Love is patient and kind. It does not envy or parade itself around. It is not easily provoked. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but celebrates truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And then comes the declaration that changes everything: love never fails.
Now apply that list inward for a moment. When you speak to yourself, are you patient and kind? When you make a mistake, do you bear with yourself the way love bears all things? When you fall short of your own expectations, do you extend the same grace that love extends to others?
Most of us do not. We are often our own harshest critics, speaking to ourselves in ways we would never speak to someone we care about. And that matters, because how we love ourselves directly shapes how we love the people around us. If we cannot forgive ourselves, forgiving others becomes harder. If we do not extend grace inward, extending it outward is a struggle. The connection is not incidental. It is by design.
The Lies That Get in the Way
The voices that whisper you are not enough, you will never get it right, you are too far gone, those voices are not from God. Romans 8:1 is clear that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. None. The Holy Spirit convicts with gentleness and leads toward restoration. The enemy accuses with the intent to destroy. Learning to tell the difference is one of the most important skills a believer can develop.
Shame is one of the enemy's most effective tools. It runs deep, and like ruts in a muddy road, it is easy to get stuck in. When shame takes the wheel, it does not just affect how we see ourselves. It bleeds into every relationship we have. We isolate. We withhold grace from others because we have none left for ourselves. We struggle to trust because we do not feel trustworthy. Shame does not have to lead. Love can.
God-Esteem, Not Self-Esteem
Here is the critical distinction: the goal is not self-esteem. The goal is God-esteem. It is not about inflating your opinion of yourself based on your accomplishments or your appearance or your reputation. It is about seeing yourself the way God sees you.
Psalm 139:14 declares that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Ephesians 2:10 calls us God's workmanship, His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He prepared in advance for us to walk in. These are not motivational slogans. They are declarations of identity from the Creator of the universe about the people He made.
When the enemy tells you that you are worthless, you have a response rooted in Scripture: I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am His workmanship. I have a calling and a purpose, and the God who made me does not make mistakes.
The Bloodline That Changes Everything
Consider this picture. In the world of thoroughbred horse racing, a champion stallion's offspring can command a stud fee of $300,000. When one of those foals is born, it enters the world wet, trembling, barely able to stand. By any outward measure, it looks fragile and unremarkable. But the owner hovers over that animal with complete confidence, because the foal's value is not determined by what it has done. It is determined by the bloodline it carries.
You may have failed. You may have stumbled, been sidelined, or felt crushed by the weight of life. You may not be where you hoped you would be by now. But your value is not determined by your performance. It is determined by your bloodline, and your bloodline is the blood of Jesus Christ.
You are royalty. You are destined for the winner's circle. You are an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony. The God who formed you, called you, and redeemed you is not finished with you. He is hovering over your life with the same confidence that owner has over that foal, not because of what you have accomplished, but because of whose you are.
Love yourself enough to believe it.
There is a question worth sitting with today, one that cuts deeper than it might first appear: How do you feel about yourself?
Not how you perform at work. Not how others perceive you. Not whether you checked off every item on your spiritual to-do list this week. How do you actually feel about yourself, in the quiet moments, when no one is watching and the voices in your head have full run of the place?
For many of us, the honest answer is uncomfortable. We beat ourselves up. We rehearse our failures. We tell ourselves we are not disciplined enough, not holy enough, not good enough. We look at the gap between who we are and who we think we should be, and we let that gap define us. The enemy of our souls is more than happy to help us do exactly that.
But here is what the Word of God has to say about all of it: love yourself. Not as a suggestion. As a command.
The Command We Overlook
In Matthew 22, a lawyer approaches Jesus with what he frames as a trick question, asking which commandment is the greatest of all. Jesus answers without hesitation. Love God with everything you have, heart, soul, and mind. Then He adds a second commandment, one He describes as being like the first, equal in weight and importance: love your neighbor as yourself.
That phrase, as yourself, is not decorative language. It is the standard. The way we treat ourselves is the benchmark for how we treat the people around us. And Jesus closes by saying that all the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments. Everything. The entire weight of Scripture rests on love, including the love we extend to ourselves.
We have heard plenty of sermons about loving God and loving others. But the middle part, loving ourselves, tends to get skipped. It feels vain. It sounds self-absorbed. Yet Jesus placed it right there in the equation, and He did not stutter.
What Love Actually Looks Like
Before we can understand what it means to love ourselves well, we need to understand what love actually is. First Corinthians 13 gives us the most complete picture in all of Scripture. Love is patient and kind. It does not envy or parade itself around. It is not easily provoked. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing but celebrates truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And then comes the declaration that changes everything: love never fails.
Now apply that list inward for a moment. When you speak to yourself, are you patient and kind? When you make a mistake, do you bear with yourself the way love bears all things? When you fall short of your own expectations, do you extend the same grace that love extends to others?
Most of us do not. We are often our own harshest critics, speaking to ourselves in ways we would never speak to someone we care about. And that matters, because how we love ourselves directly shapes how we love the people around us. If we cannot forgive ourselves, forgiving others becomes harder. If we do not extend grace inward, extending it outward is a struggle. The connection is not incidental. It is by design.
The Lies That Get in the Way
The voices that whisper you are not enough, you will never get it right, you are too far gone, those voices are not from God. Romans 8:1 is clear that there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. None. The Holy Spirit convicts with gentleness and leads toward restoration. The enemy accuses with the intent to destroy. Learning to tell the difference is one of the most important skills a believer can develop.
Shame is one of the enemy's most effective tools. It runs deep, and like ruts in a muddy road, it is easy to get stuck in. When shame takes the wheel, it does not just affect how we see ourselves. It bleeds into every relationship we have. We isolate. We withhold grace from others because we have none left for ourselves. We struggle to trust because we do not feel trustworthy. Shame does not have to lead. Love can.
God-Esteem, Not Self-Esteem
Here is the critical distinction: the goal is not self-esteem. The goal is God-esteem. It is not about inflating your opinion of yourself based on your accomplishments or your appearance or your reputation. It is about seeing yourself the way God sees you.
Psalm 139:14 declares that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Ephesians 2:10 calls us God's workmanship, His masterpiece, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He prepared in advance for us to walk in. These are not motivational slogans. They are declarations of identity from the Creator of the universe about the people He made.
When the enemy tells you that you are worthless, you have a response rooted in Scripture: I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I am His workmanship. I have a calling and a purpose, and the God who made me does not make mistakes.
The Bloodline That Changes Everything
Consider this picture. In the world of thoroughbred horse racing, a champion stallion's offspring can command a stud fee of $300,000. When one of those foals is born, it enters the world wet, trembling, barely able to stand. By any outward measure, it looks fragile and unremarkable. But the owner hovers over that animal with complete confidence, because the foal's value is not determined by what it has done. It is determined by the bloodline it carries.
You may have failed. You may have stumbled, been sidelined, or felt crushed by the weight of life. You may not be where you hoped you would be by now. But your value is not determined by your performance. It is determined by your bloodline, and your bloodline is the blood of Jesus Christ.
You are royalty. You are destined for the winner's circle. You are an overcomer by the blood of the Lamb and the word of your testimony. The God who formed you, called you, and redeemed you is not finished with you. He is hovering over your life with the same confidence that owner has over that foal, not because of what you have accomplished, but because of whose you are.
Love yourself enough to believe it.
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