While Jesus said we were to love our neighbor as ourselves, somebody else said, “Heaven help your neighbor if you hate yourself.” The fact is I can only love and accept others to the degree that I have learned to love and accept myself; that is, in a healthy and not a conceited sense.

This has nothing to do with self-aggrandizement. It has to do with how I see myself, what I think about myself, how I feel about myself, and how well I accept myself, as this will largely determine how well I do in love and life. In other words, we need to see ourselves as God sees us—with our strengths and weaknesses—and accept ourselves as God accepts us.

Take a bar of iron and make it into nails and it will be worth a few dollars, make it into weight-bearing posts and its value will increase, refine it and make it into stainless steel pots and it will be worth even more. Refine it ever further and use it to make finely tuned space-age rocket engines and it will be worth a fortune.

Life’s like that. If you believe in yourself and accept yourself the way God believes in and accepts you, with his help and refining (plus a lot of hard work), you can become the person God wants you to be. Then you will be able to do with your life what God wants you to do and therein gain a deep sense of satisfaction because your life is contributing to God’s Kingdom and the betterment of others. This gives one’s life a high and noble purpose and great value.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please help me to see and accept myself as you see and accept me and refine my life so it can be best lived for others and therein bring glory to you. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus’ name, amen.”

1. Mark 12:31 (NIV).