Learning to Love Yourself

May, 2002

by: Dave Hintz

As many of you have heard, I am officially in love with Becky Anderson, and I asked her to marry me this past March 2002. This has provoked much thinking on my part, as to the exact nature and make-up of love. In my search for answers, I turned to the ever-popular theologian, Whitney Houston, and her breathtakingly beautiful ballad (no, not the one from The Bodyguard) “The Greatest Love of All.” Consider this well-known yet worldly tribute to “love."

Because the greatest love of all is happening to me

I've found the greatest love of all inside of me

The greatest love of all is easy to achieve

Learning to love yourself, it is the greatest love of all

In the midst of this seemingly moving ballad, Whitney subtly communicates that self-love serves as the supreme love of all creation. For confirmation of this perspective of love, one only has to look at the abundance of books on self-esteem. We can only give love when our love-tank has been fulfilled. Love serves as the cosmic commodity that must be hoarded before it can be given away. Yet, such a view grates against the grain of Scripture. Biblical love by its very nature is sacrificial. According to Romans 5:8“But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” God's love for us was demonstrated in the sacrifice of His Son. John 15:13“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” Jesus exhibits his love in laying down his life. In the Magnum Opus of Love, I Corinthians 13:4-7, Paul mentions that Love does not seek its own (vs. 5). Biblical love does not seek to indulge the giver but to gratify its recipient. My love for Becky, and for that matter for the Lord, must be rooted in a desire to die to myself, to surrender my life as I now know it for the glory of God and the benefit of Becky.