The Modern Beauty Myth

"Learn to love yourself "  " Get comfortable in your own skin "   " Let your inner  beauty shine through "   " Be yourself "   "Believe in yourself"

   As a modern young women, I have had these phrases thrown in my face numerous times from all different kinds of people, secular and christian. Yet every time I've heard them, they have seemed to fall flat. It was only recently that I discovered why. They're false! Yes you heard me. There is no Biblical support for any of these ideas. In fact the Bible teaches the exact opposite. Now, yes, I understand that these ideas are spread in order to keep girls from killing themselves or developing eating disorders, but if loving and  believing in myself is supposed to keep me from having a bad self image, then I'm done for. All these ideas do is cause girls to turn inward and focus on themselves, so that when a prettier or more 'successful' girl comes along all they can think about is how she will affect them. Anyway, off my soap box, as I was saying the teachings in the Bible run contrary to this kind of thinking. Jesus never taught us to love ourselves. He taught us that the two greatest commandments were to love God and to love others (Matt. 22: 37-40). Nowhere in there does He say anything about loving ourselves except as an example of how we are to love our neighbors. He also never taught us to 'get comfortable in our own skin'. In fact, the life he lived was anything but comfortable and I don't know about you, but he doesn't seem to be championing comfort, when He says to take up our cross and follow Him (Luke 9:23). As to letting our inner beauty shine through, if we had any true inner beauty, Christ would not have had to die. But because 'our righteous acts are as filthy rags' (Is. 64:6) He had to sacrifice His life for ours. And I don't recall him telling us to be ourselves, in fact the Bible often exhorts us to imitate Christ, and die to our self (2Cor.5:15). Lastly, believing in ourselves, will never bring us true happiness, because I don't know about you but I often disappoint myself. Only Christ is capable of fulfilling my every need, so why should I rely on one so dismally qualified?