Love Your Spouse As You Love Yourself

“Jesus replied: “ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.””  Matthew 22:37-40 NIV

Jesus commanded his disciples and continues to command us to “love your neighbor as yourself.” With this greatest commandment in mind, I believe it is extremely important for spouses to acknowledge that the hardest action in a marriage is often not loving your spouse. Instead, it’s loving your spouse as you love yourself. 

Love your spouse as yourself. 

Yet, what do you do when you are unable to truly love yourself? The truth is that you will always struggle to love others if you struggle to love yourself. More specifically for your marriage, you will always struggle to love your spouse if you struggle to love yourself. Loving your spouse and others starts with the ability to love yourself as God loves you.

But, wait, isn’t self-love selfish? Nope. Absolutely not. Self-love is our ability to properly see ourselves as God sees us. How does God see us? 

• Romans 3–As broken messy sinners in need of redemption yet are declared righteous in Jesus
• Romans 6–As broken messy sinners given the gift of eternal life through Jesus
• Psalm 139–As fearfully and wonderfully made by Jesus
• Ephesians 1–As worthy of blessing, love, adoption, and forgiveness through Jesus
• 1 John 3–As His children due to Jesus
• 2 Corinthians 3–As someone being transformed into the very image of Jesus

Bottom line regarding self-love? We are to love ourselves as someone who is:

Fearfully and wonderfully made; worthy of blessing, love, adoption, and forgiveness; a Child of God; and someone being made in the very image of Christ. 

If we can love ourselves the way God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit loves us, imagine our ability to love others, especially our spouses. Imagine the ways our marriages would be radically transformed as the love of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is modeled and shared within our marriages. Imagine what that kind of love would do to and for our kids. Imagine the witness our marriages would provide to the PTAs, the ball teams, and carpools. 

Want to love your spouse well? Start with loving yourself well. Want to love yourself well? See yourself the way God sees you; as broken and messy yet beautifully redeemed Children. 

Love your neighbor as yourself.

Love your spouse as yourself. 

“All the law and prophets hang on these two commandments.”