#AffirmationMonday: Love Yourself (Part 1)

"And I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from God's love. Neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither our fears for today nor our worries about tomorrow-not even the powers of hell can separate us from God's love." (Romans 8:38, NLT)

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching and while you’re probably busy planning and prepping gifts for the big day, have you stopped to think about what you’re going to do for yourself? I am genuinely a nurturer. I take care of people and things. And unfortunately, it’s instinctive for me to miss taking care of me. How many of you does that describe? I’ve been so wrapped up with helping other people that I haven’t even been to the doctor in years! YEARS! No, I’m not proud of that. But I wanted to share that so that if you’re living on autopilot like me, you can wake up. When you’re riding on a plane, and the flight attendant is going through emergency instructions, they always tell you to put your oxygen mask on first. On the surface, it seemed selfish to me. Shouldn’t you want to jump in and start helping others? But how can you help someone else if you pass out?

I believe to effectively and wholeheartedly love others we have to first love ourselves. It’s not selfish or shallow to respect yourself enough to take care of yourself. As a matter of fact, John talks about wanting our bodies to prosper just as much as he wants our souls to prosper (3 John 2:2). To fully love ourselves, we have to wrap our minds around how God sees us. Because the blessing is when we are children of God, it doesn’t matter how we view ourselves. There are some truths we can stand on because of our relationship with the one who gave us life.

Over the next four Mondays, we’re going to dig in to the truth of God’s love for us, starting with this: God gave His son over to death because He loves us (John 3:16). Take heart in the fact that you were loved well before you were born and you were loved so much that you were willing to die for in advance. Now that’s some powerful love. For the next 6 days, I want you to try something. For each day, I want you to write down one thing about yourself that you don’t like. Then I want you to add ‘but God sees me and He loves me’ to the end of it. For example, one of mine would be this:

I don’t like my weight.

I would then replace it with this:

I don’t like my weight but God sees me and He loves me. 

Spend some time meditating on your new statement each day. Note: this doesn’t change the circumstance. There are legitimate things that we need to work on. But if we truly let this sink in, it ensures us that regardless of how we view ourselves, God still loves us. He loves us in some of our most imperfect moments. There is nothing that can separate us from God's love (Romans 8:38). If you're stuck or wondering how God's love can help you, email us at contactus@createdandrestored.com. And if you're being blessed with our #AffirmationMonday posts, feel free to share them.

Affirmation for the Week: God's love frees me to love myself wholeheartedly. I am worth it.