How You Feel About Yourself

Jesus replied: “’Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” -Matthew 22:37–39 (NIV)

Today I’d like to talk about one of the most important aspects of controlling our emotions: How we feel about ourselves. It’s something we often overlook—but it makes all the difference!

See, when a Pharisee asked Jesus what the greatest commandment in God’s law was, He responded with the words of today’s scripture verses. What is most important for us as Christians is to love God, love people, and love ourselves. We often feel we do well in terms of loving God and loving others, but we struggle to love ourselves.

Part of loving ourselves involves liking ourselves and feeling good about who God made us to be. And the best way to feel about ourselves is positive, not negative, about who we are. If we don’t like ourselves, we will have a hard time liking other people and getting along with them. We may pretend to like ourselves, but pretense doesn’t alter fact. Eventually, the truth will come out.

To be everything God has created us to be and do all He calls us to do, we need to have godly attitudes toward other people and toward ourselves. We need to be emotionally stable and rooted and grounded in God’s love for us (see Ephesians 3:17).

When we are rooted and grounded in God’s love, we are secure in who we are. We can be relaxed and at ease. We are confident that our worth as individuals has nothing to do with our performance or anything we do; it has everything to do with God’s heart of unconditional love and acceptance toward us. When we begin to understand how God feels about us, not only can we love ourselves, but we can also like and enjoy ourselves.

Adapted from the book Managing Your Emotions by Joyce Meyer. Copyright 2023 by Joyce Meyer. Published by Hachette Book Group, Inc. All rights reserved.

Prayer: “Lord, help me to see myself the way You see me. Despite my flaws, remind me that You love me unconditionally. And no matter what struggles I have, Your love can overcome anything. In Jesus’ name, amen.”