Ephesians 5:28-29 So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies. He that loveth his wife loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church:

First let me say I am not a doctor and I cannot speak to clinical depression. That is a medical condition. What I can speak to is a spiritual condition. In this I will attempt to answer what it means to love oneself.

It is the responsibility of parents to model love for their children. We grow up understanding what love looks like by watching our parents. If they follow God’s model of love then our first glimpse of love in action come from our parents. If they do not, then our view of God’s love is missing in early development.

Parents also develop self-help. Bath, brush your teeth, comb your hair, exercise, be fit, take pride in your appearance. What they do not say in that exercise is that if you feel good about yourself you will feel worthy of good things. People who do not take care of themselves are a clear reflection of personal values. Think of an image in this statement; “Show some respect.” That image you see is your view of someone who does not respect themselves. They have no self-love.

Now comes the spiritual part.

Isaiah 64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

Note the phrase filthy rags. Here is the essence of taking care of ourselves. Every effort of caring for ourselves comes up short of righteousness, a right standing before God. It is like never being good enough for your parents’ approval. We are not talking about parents, we are talking God. There is nothing a parent can do to change what we have done or how we feel about ourselves. God can.

Philippians 3:9 And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith:

We know what we were, unclean, unworthy. What we have to do to love ourselves now is to see our position with God, to feel worthy of God’s love, by seeing and believing ourselves in Christ. We have forgiveness of sin. All the bad we did has been forgiven by God through the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross.

Have you forgiven yourself? If not you have not loved yourself.

Trade your filthy rags for His righteous robes!