by Christopher Gryniewicz

Created on: February 21, 2010   Last Updated: February 23, 2010

Self improvement is a major focus in psychology today; entire sections of bookstores are dedicated to self-help and empowerment. A lack of self-worth and self-love has been argued to be the foundation of problems within relationships, addictions, self-destructive behaviors and more. In every twelve step recovery program, from overcoming alcoholism to overcoming codependency, the path to finding yourself is to give yourself up, first, to a higher power. For Christians, this higher power is Christ and only by accepting Christ's love for us, can we learn to love ourselves. The words of the Serenity Prayer, used in many Christian recovery programs, sums up exactly how the power of Christ's love for us can empower us.

God, give us grace to accept with serenity
the things that cannot be changed,
Courage to change the things
which should be changed,
and the Wisdom to distinguish
the one from the other.

Living one day at a time,
Enjoying one moment at a time,
Accepting hardship as a pathway to peace,
Taking, as Jesus did,
This sinful world as it is,
Not as I would have it,
Trusting that You will make all things right,
If I surrender to Your will,
So that I may be reasonably happy in this life,
And supremely happy with You forever in the next.

Amen.

-Original text by Reinhold Niebuhr

When Christ was asked what is the most important commandment, he responded “'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these." (NIV, Mark 12:29-31)

Here we are told to love God above all else and to love our neighbors as ourselves. For some Christians, this passage is interpreted to mean that we should not love ourselves. The argument here is that Christ gives only two commandments; commandment one: love God, and commandment two: love your neighbor. Christ assumes that we already love ourselves and that this self-love is sin.

In the interpretations used in the “False Gospel of Self-Esteem,” which can be found in numerous places on-line, self-esteem and pride are made to be synonymous and self-love is argued to be the source of original sin, for which Christ died. Although it can be argued that pride is a sin, as Proverbs 11:2 reminds us, “When pride comes, then comes disgrace, but with humility comes wisdom”, are pride and self-esteem truly

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