Loving Who You Are & Who God Made You to Be
by Joyce Meyer
How do you like yourself? Do you love yourself in a balanced way? I’m not talking about a selfish, self-centered way or having a bad attitude toward yourself. God wants you to love yourself, because you are the one person that you are never going to get away from. So you better learn to like yourself. Face it—you’re stuck with you!
Come as You Are
The Bible tells us to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. (See Matthew 22:39.) However, if we don’t love ourselves, how can we love anyone else? You and I have to like ourselves and believe that God didn’t create a bunch of junk but that He made us special. He had something in mind when He made us. No, we’re not perfect. But God didn’t make us imperfect. The imperfection is because of sin in the world and its effects on us, which includes bodies that don’t always behave right. However, Jesus came for imperfect people who have problems and who have needs.
The Bible tells us to come as we are to Jesus (see Matthew 11:28), and He will make us what we need to be. When we have problems, we shouldn’t run away from God but rather run to Him with our problems.
Me, Myself & I
Too many people don’t like themselves, and you and I will never like or enjoy anyone else if we don’t first enjoy ourselves. Of course I’m not talking about this in a me-me-me-me-me kind of way, but I’m talking about just loving ourselves as the person God has created us to be. Even though we’re not where we need to be, we can accept where we are right now and keep working with God to get to where He’s taking us. There’s no point in hating ourselves while we’re on the journey.
I believe the single greatest problem that most people have is that deep down inside, they don’t like who they are. I still don’t like a lot of my behavior, but I have learned to like who I am. I love the “me” that God has created me to be, and I could not be ministering to you properly if I could not say that. A lot of people think, Oh, you shouldn’t say you love yourself. Yes, we should. We don’t need to go around saying, “Oh, I love myself.” That’s not what I’m talking about. But why is it that we are so much more comfortable saying, “I hate myself”? Or, “I hate this about myself”? Or, “I don’t like this about myself,” rather than saying, “Well, you know, I like this about myself. I like my personality.” The last thing you and I need to do is talk negatively about ourselves.
There are so many insecure people in our society today. It’s like an epidemic and it is causing big problems. Insecure people need to be told twenty-four hours a day that they’re loved, that they’re pretty, and on and on. If you’re married to an insecure person, it can ruin your marriage because you have to spend all your time trying to fix them. Sooner or later you’ll get tired of having to keep that person fixed. I know because I used to be like that.
Connect the Dots
Do you have trouble getting along with people? Do you know that our relationships with God, ourselves, and other people are all interconnected, meaning they affect each other? First Peter 3:11 states that we need to strive to be at peace with God, with ourselves, and with our fellow man. However, if we’re not at peace with ourselves, we can’t possibly be at peace with others. I know this for a fact because I used to be such a hard person to get along with, yet it seemed that everyone else had a problem. I thought if all of them would just straighten up, then I could be happy. People frustrated me and I couldn’t understand why I had such a hard time getting along with everyone. I just wished they would stop making me mad! Then God gave me a revelation. He showed me that I can’t give something away that I don’t have myself. Also, I didn’t like anyone else because deep down inside, I really didn’t like myself. I couldn’t get along with anyone else because I couldn’t get along with myself.
Many of us have strife inside ourselves, which causes us to not be at peace. Instead we continually judge, analyze and criticize ourselves. Some of us also keep a running record of all our faults, causing us to live under continual guilt and condemnation.
Judge Not
Many of us need to have better opinions of ourselves. Hebrews 12:2 says, Looking away [from all that will distract] to Jesus, Who is the Leader and the Source of our faith. That’s a pretty awesome scripture because it tells us that when we take our eyes off of Jesus and look at everything that is wrong with us, it distracts us from Him, from the call of God on our lives, from prayer, and from fulfilling our destinies.
This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t examine ourselves, but it’s another thing to judge ourselves. Examining means we know our faults and we take them to God and let Him change us. But judging ourselves means that we pass a sentence on ourselves. So when we judge ourselves, we determine that we don’t deserve to be blessed and God can’t use us because we’re too bad.
When we choose to judge, it means we are setting ourselves up as God. Judgment belongs to God and not to man. We are to stop judging ourselves, and we’re told in the Bible that the apostle Paul said he would not judge himself because he didn’t sit in judgment of any man. He didn’t judge himself because God alone is his judge. (See 1 Corinthians 4:3,4.)
We need to get our eyes off of everything that’s wrong with us, as well as everything that we think is right with us, because our eyes need to be on Jesus. If we concentrate on all we think is wrong with us, we’ll feel insecure and depressed. If we look at all we think is right with us, then we risk becoming proud and haughty. We need to look at Jesus because He’s the Author and Finisher of our faith.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T Yourself
Take a moment to seriously ask yourself, “How do I feel about me?” It’s important because you and I will never get along with other people if we don’t first get along with ourselves.
It’s awesome when we think about how God wants us to feel about ourselves. He wants us to feel right about ourselves, so that we can feel right about other people and have a right relationship with Him. You might as well decide today that you are going to have a good relationship with yourself because no matter what you do, you are not going to be able to shake yourself free from you. Make up your mind that you are going to start having more respect for yourself even though you may not be spiritually, physically or emotionally where you’d like to be. Thank God that you’re not where you used to be, and remind yourself that you’re making some progress, you’re growing, you’re changing, and you’re learning.
He started this work in you and He’s the only One who can finish it. (See Philippians 1:6.) Life is constantly changing, we’re always changing, and we’re always going to be changing. The Bible tells us to keep pressing toward the mark of perfection until Jesus returns. (See Philippians 3:14.)
It’s interesting because we are pressing toward something that we know will never arrive until we’re with Jesus. But a person whose heart is right toward God can’t keep themselves from wanting to improve. We should want to improve but not let it frustrate us. Even though we want to be perfect and do what’s right, it’s a paradox because we know we won’t achieve it until we see Jesus. You might be saying, “Well, that doesn’t make sense, Joyce.” It doesn’t make sense to the natural mind and that’s why we have to look at things spiritually speaking. If our hearts are right, we can’t help but want to be like Jesus, yet I know that in me, my flesh, dwells no good thing. (See Romans 7:18.)
Keep Pressing On
We are all at different places on the road of life. When we meet Jesus, whatever is wrong with us is going to instantly be fixed. Whatever needs to be finished will completely be finished at that point. God showed me that He’s not going to be mad at anyone because they have not arrived but disappointed if they don’t keep pressing on.
We need to stop thinking about everything that’s wrong with ourselves. Yes, you and I have plenty of things wrong with us. But do you know what? Don’t sit around anymore and take inventory of it. If you ask me right now all that is wrong with me, to be honest, I’d have to sit and think awhile.
I want to encourage you to keep your eyes on the finish line. Philippians 3:3 instructs us to put no confidence in our flesh, which means to stop having confidence in what we are and what we aren’t. Our confidence needs to be based in God, and when it is we can be secure in Him.
God loves with an everlasting love. Even when we do dumb stuff, He sees our heart. This doesn’t mean He won’t correct us, but we know He is full of forgiveness and mercy, which we continually need in life. He loves us just the way we are right now and who He is making us to be.
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JESUS LOVES ME
Testimony
Jennifer B.
Lewiston, ID
Although I was a Christian, I couldn’t comprehend that God, the Creator of the universe, really loved me or was interested in ME. How could He love me? I had a huge hole in my heart because I thought I had to earn His love and salvation.
After two divorces, I began using food to ease the ache in my heart and quickly became a slave to bulimia. Because I had diabetes, I figured out that I could usurp the unpleasant purging process by simply withholding my insulin. On almost a nightly basis for nine years, I would binge on food and then pass out and sleep it off.
My third husband committed suicide and my fourth husband abandoned me after six months. I hit absolute rock bottom and contemplated how to kill myself, but God led me to a counselor at church. The Holy Spirit, through this counselor, led me step-by-step on my journey to healing. It was also during this time that I began watching Joyce’s television show in the morning and getting “fed” with good, solid, biblical truth.
Last year on Valentine’s Day, my heart was aching and I felt lonely. While walking on a treadmill, I was listening to a CD from Keys to Enjoying Every Single Day of Your Life, and Joyce said, “Maybe you aren’t really born again,” and the Holy Spirit stirred within me. He led me to my knees, and I asked Jesus—really asked Him, not just saying words but pleading with my heart, my soul and my spirit for Him to come into my heart and change me, fill me up and make me new.
The Holy Spirit gave me a vision of myself as a little girl, all by myself in a dark room. There was a door, and when I opened it, Jesus was standing there. I let Him in, and He knelt down in front of me and took me in His arms, and I started to cry. Jesus then said, “Just let me love you, Jennifer. Let me love you.”
Jesus touched my heart and healed me. I could literally feel His love surrounding me, filling me up and filling my heart where that hole and that ache used to be. What a Valentine! God’s love—God’s truth—has set me free. It was nothing I did on my own. God set me free, and I am FREE INDEED!
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www.joycemeyer.org/testimonies. Or, mail your testimony to:
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P.O. Box 1350
Fenton, MO 63026
Inspiration For the Most of Us
