Today's question from the end box comes from Andy, who asks, this, Pastor John, should

we love ourselves?

Soren Kierkegaard once said, don't forget to love yourself, and many teachers use Jesus'

instruction to love our neighbors as ourselves to suggest we need to love ourselves first.

But is this advice biblical?

Would you say, Pastor John?

First a word about Kierkegaard and then a word about Jesus and Paul and whether it's

biblical.

What Kierkegaard meant, I went and found that letter, what Kierkegaard meant and what

is certainly right to mean was that we ought always to love ourselves rightly.

In other words, if someone thinks that he will find happiness in a life of self-pity,

he should be told, you are failing in your duty to love yourself rightly.

You are living a lie.

You are indeed loving yourself.

Everyone does.

In the sense that you are pursuing the path that feels most gratifying to you, but you're

wrong.

This will not gratify.

Kierkegaard's quote, don't forget to love yourself, comes from letter 196 to his cousin,

Hans Peter, who was crippled from birth.

Hans was giving in to the false view that a life without walking could not be lived in

happiness and significance.

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