That’s right, we can love ourselves without being selfish, and in fact Jesus commands us to do so. Jesus said that the second commandment is to love our neighbour as ourselves, which means first of all we must love ourselves. So learning to love ourselves is essential to being able to love other people.

If we consider ourselves to be miserable sinners, chances are we shall see everyone else that way. There's every liklihood that we shall find it hard to believe that God can love us or anyone else.

At such times it may help us to remember that

"God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life." John 3:16

and that in this case "the world" means every human being in the world, including you and me. If you struggle to believe God loves you, write the verse out, substituting your name for "the world" and read the verse with your name in it when you start the day and before going to bed at night, and perhaps when you sit down to enjoy your lunch, too.

The second thing to remember is that,

"all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God", (Romans 3:23)

so your sinfulness or "messing up" isn't unique to you. Everyone "messes up" and the cause of a lot of our sin is the hurt and failure in our lives, which some call brokeness. The most successful entrepreneur, the most beautiful person you know, even Bishops, Archbishops and Popes, every person alive, all are broken, sinful people, yet inspite of that God loves each of them enough to send his Son to die for them. So if God can love them, he can love you, too. His grace really is amazing!

A Christian love of self therefore is not an excuse for over-indulgence and selfishness, but it is an essential basis for loving other people. If we feel unworthy ourselves this will hinder our ability to love others. Such a love of self involves having neither an inflated ego nor low self-esteem. Moreover, it is entirely compatible with Christian humility, which is not about feeling as if you are a miserable, feeble little worm.

When we are in a right relationship with God through his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, and when we understand that God is our loving heavenly Father, who wants the best for us, who actually does approve of us (although not of everyhting we do) and who accepts us as we are, warts and all, we can learn to love ourselves while also loving others and practising Christian humility. Christian humility, or 'meekness', is not about self-abasement, merely the antidote to self-aggrandisement. Jesus is described as meek, yet also as someone with authority. Jesus had a quiet self-confidence and did not feel the need to grovel, but neither did he feel the need to be bullying or grasping or to seize power.

The Beatles told us that 'money can't buy you love'; it can't buy you contentment or fulfilment, either.

Jesus said, 'And how do you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul in the process?' (Matthew 16:26, NLT)

We live in a world where much emphasis is put on physical aspects and on the importance of gaining wealth and possessions, but very little emphasis is put on nurturing the spirit. We can be the wealthiest person in the world owning everything we ever dreamt of, yet we can be empty and discontented.

The only way to enjoy the abundant life God wants us to have is to develop a relationship with God and nurture the spiritual nature, making the things that matter to God the focus of our life.

However, we must not deny the physical side of life. God made us physical beings with bodies that have needs and with physical as well as spritiual desires. Eating a healthy diet and getting enough exercise and sleep will help us to be more able to develop our spiritual nature. Contact with the natural world and touching the soil, as well as enjoying a healthy sex life in the context of a long-term, loving relationship are also important for overall health and well-being. The thing is to strike a good balance between work, recreation, rest, relationships and time spent in prayer, contemplation and reading the Bible and other devotional literature.

Modern forms of Celtic Christianity, such as the Iona Community, put great emphasis on the interconnectedness of body, mind and spirit and also our emotions and so of a good work-life balance. They also emphasise the links between humanity and nature and our responsibility to care for creation and show respect for God's Earth. Celtic Christianity is not about worshipping the sun or indulging in strange pagan rituals, but in returning to the whole-life, holistic faith of the early Celtic Christians, and other early Christians, and indeed Jesus himself.

In their book, Living on Purpose: Finding God's best for your life, Tom and Christine Sine also propose a form of whole-life Chrisitianity, one where God's values replace the values of our consumer society at the core of our being and we learn to experience God's Shalom (peace and wholeness) in our lives.

Through further articles, which it is planned to add to this website in time, and conversations on the discussion board, it is hoped that we can work out ways of developing a whole-life faith that affirms us and challenges us and helps us to live according to Jesus' teaching and example in a way that is relevant to life today.