How Not To Hate Yourself When Confronted With Your Sin
It can often feel easier to hate yourself than to hate sin. You know you can’t hate God.
But it feels like someone should be blamed. So you begin to blame yourself.
And especially when it is a sin that is hard to get free from, you begin to hate yourself.
That’s not what Jesus wants for you. So let’s begin the journey of getting free today.
The first thing to understand is that it is good when God confronts your sin.
The Bible says that sin full grown leads to death.
“Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death.” James 1:15 NKJV
So when sin is confronted early, it is like a doctor diagnosing you with cancer at an early stage of treatment.
The awareness is difficult, but the earlier you know, the easier it is to treat. If you remain unaware, it can reach a stage that it could destroy you.
So Jesus, being a good doctor, diagnoses the cancer of sin so that you can be healed.
Can you imagine a doctor that knew you had cancer but didn’t say anything because they didn’t want to hurt your feelings?
They would be evil, because they would be more focused on how you felt over the value of your life. This is why Jesus confronts sin in our life.
The Bible says that God corrects those He loves, and He disciplines those who are His children.
“The LORD loves those he corrects, just like a father who treats his son with favor.” Proverbs 3:12 CEB
“Because the Lord disciplines whomever he loves and he punishes every son or daughter whom he accepts.” Hebrews 12:6 CEB
If your sin is being exposed, whether by the Holy Spirit, your conscience, or a brother or sister in Christ, that is a good sign. God can use any of those means to confront sin.
If your conscience is never confronted by sin, that could indicate a seared conscience, which would be a very serious problem.
But let’s be honest, even though we can admit that it is objectively good, that doesn’t make it not hard.
So how do you avoid hating yourself when confronted with your sin?
The scripture that holds our healing is Romans 12:9:
“Love must be without hypocrisy. Abhor what is evil. Cling to what is good.”
We are commanded to hate what is evil.
If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, if you believe in Him as Lord and Savior, you are not evil by identity.
You have been ransomed by the blood of Jesus Christ. You are a child of God and a co-heir with Jesus Christ.
There is no higher good than Jesus Himself.
Your goodness is not your own. Your goodness comes from God. When you were adopted into His family, you became an inheritor of His goodness. Not just by proximity, but by identity.
The Church is the Bride of Christ. Scripture says that a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two become one flesh.
“Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.” Genesis 2:24 NKJV
In the same way, those who belong to Christ are joined in oneness with Him.
His love for us as the Bridegroom is not fickle. It is not based on whether you had a bad day. It is not based on your behavior, your mood, or whether you feel loved by God in that moment.
Therefore, if we are commanded to hate what is evil, it is actually disobedience to hate yourself when you are not evil.
The Paradox of the Sinful Nature
At the same time, we should hate the sinful nature.
Even after becoming born again through faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, receiving the Holy Spirit, and following Him faithfully, the sinful nature is something that must continually be crucified.
Its power to destroy us was dismantled at the cross, yet Jesus still commands us to take up our cross daily and follow Him.
Where is the sinful nature?
It is within us. But it is not us.
One time, my wife and I were walking and we smelled an awful smell. She wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew what it was for sure.
It was a skunk. But we couldn’t see the skunk, but we knew it was there because of the smell.
A few days later, a few streets away, we smelled the stink of the skunk again. But this time, we saw that it had been run over by a car. Even though it was dead, it was still putrid.
In Christ, the sinful nature is like a skunk in the street that has been run over.
Even though it is dead, it still stinks until it has fully decayed into nothingness. It is crucified, so it does not hold you captive, but you can still feel its stink permeate until the time when Jesus Himself returns to make all things new.
“Then He who sat on the throne said, ‘Behold, I make all things new…’” Revelation 21:5 NKJV
There is a myth that after being sprayed by a skunk, the best solution is to bathe in tomato juice.
While that is not true, when we are bathed in the blood of Jesus, it removes the stink of the sinful nature spiritually. Making us a fragrant aroma unto God even as we are overcoming sin.
From a biblical lens, another way to think about the sinful nature is the old self.
Romans 6:6 says:
“We know that our old man was crucified with Him so that the body of sin would no longer dominate us, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin.”
The phrase “old man” comes from the Greek word anthropos, which can refer to the self in the context of the passage (Strongs G444).
The challenge is that we are called to hate the old self, the sinful nature, without hating ourselves.
Sin is not just something we do. Sin is an active force opposing us and seeking to devour us like a bloodthirsty lion.
The Greek word most often translated as sin is hamartia. It is an archery term that means “to miss the mark,” but it also carries the idea of missing one’s inheritance.
If we only focus on missing the mark, we can begin to feel defeated.
We think:
“I keep messing up.”
“I keep failing.”
But God shows us where we are missing the mark because He wants us closer to the mark, which is Christ.
Jesus paid for our sin and hit the mark for us when His hands were pierced by Roman nails on the cross on our behalf.
Wherever we are missing the mark, His sacrifice covers it.
Yet sin also causes us to miss portions of the inheritance God desires for us to walk in.
That is why conviction of sin should produce gratitude rather than hopelessness.
The Root of Self Hatred
We become vulnerable to self hatred when we believe we must perform for the love of God.
But we do not perform for God’s love. God loves us because He is love.
Scripture says that God is love.
“And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.” I John 4:16 NKJV
The Father loved the world so much that He gave His only begotten Son so that whoever believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life.
“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.” John 3:16 NKJV
If we believe our standing before God is determined by our performance rather than by repentance and faith, we will begin to loathe conviction.
Every exposure of sin will feel like an angry judge declaring you as guilty.
But conviction is not meant to push us away from God.
It is meant to bring us back to Him.
Looking Up Instead of Looking Inward
Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Matthew 22:37).
The second is like it. Love your neighbor as yourself (Matthew 22:39).
When you are consumed with self hatred, your attention has become fixed on yourself rather than on God or your neighbor.
Hebrews tells us to fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.
When God confronts us with sin, it is for our repentance and restoration.
Repentance turns us back toward God. Self hatred turns us inward.
That is the difference.
When conviction comes, we are not meant to stare at ourselves or even our sinful nature.
We are meant to look at Christ. Anything that we pay attention to more than Christ is idolatry.
If you struggle with self hatred, it may be because when sin is exposed, you turn inward rather than upward.
Turning inward means you are making yourself a god, and your soul was never designed to bear the weight of that.
Hebrews 6 describes repentance from dead works and repentance toward God.
We turn away from what is dead and turn toward the living God.
“Therefore, leaving the discussion of the elementary principles of Christ, let us go on to perfection, not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God…” Hebrews 6:1 NKJV
Peter’s Self Hatred
Being a leader does not exempt you from the self hatred that comes from sin.
Days before his crucifixion, Jesus tells his disciples that He will be murdered by the Jews through the hands of the Roman government. He then says that they will all abandon Him at His most crucial hour of need.
Peter boldly declares that he will never fall away from Jesus. Within days, on a cold night, Peter denies 3 times that he even knows Jesus at all.
When the rooster crowed and fulfilled the prophecy and as Jesus turned and looked at his friend who betrayed him, Peter wept bitterly.
Peter was so discouraged by his denial that afterwards, he went back to fishing.
Jesus found him fishing, and didn’t condemn him. He ate grilled fish with him and spent time with him.
After challenging him 3 times, He restored him. That same Peter went on to preach the Gospel, bring thousands to Jesus and be a pillar of the early church.
That is how conviction works.
Condemnation is a work of the enemy and the territory of the enemy.
When Judas remained in condemnation rather than repenting, he hung himself on a tree. Even though Jesus already hung on a tree for all of our sins, including his.
Conviction Versus Condemnation
This is why we need to recognize the difference between conviction and condemnation. One leads to life and the other to death.
Conviction comes from God.
Condemnation comes from the accuser.
The devil and his demons harass us through accusation. When this happens, we must rebuke it and not tolerate it for a moment.
Is every attack of self hatred demonic oppression? No. But when it is, we have to recognize that the solution differs slightly.
In ancient times, in a battle, the enemies would lay siege to a castle in an attempt to destroy it.
This is like demonic harassment, it is like an enemy archer shooting at you. Or like a battering ram trying to smash the gates open to steal, kill and destroy.
The sinful nature in a Christian is like an enemy spy within the castle, looking for an opportunity to open a door for the enemy that is outside to help them get inside.
Both have the same goal, but are operating from different angles.
So the strategy to deal with them becomes different, even though they are both opposed to the will of God.
The Word of God says submit to God, resist the devil, and he will flee from you.
“Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” James 4:7 NKJV
Rebuking demonic attacks, out loud, is how we resist demonic attacks in the same way that Jesus did.
Notice that when Jesus rebuked demons, it was always out loud, directed against them, and with authority.
But in the garden of Gethsemane, he resisted and overcame the sinful nature through crying out to God in prayer and submitting His will to the will of the Father.
“…Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Luke 22:42 NKJV
It is not always easy to know where the attack is coming from. It is not something we can deduce through intellect or through effort. We must learn to know and trust the voice and heart of God.
Jesus said that His sheep know His voice.
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.” John 10:27 NKJV
This does not mean that every believer immediately recognizes God’s voice perfectly. When facing spiritual warfare, this can be especially difficult. So give yourself grace. Growth and maturity take time.
But as we mature, we should increasingly recognize His voice and distinguish it from other voices.
We learn His voice through Scripture because Scripture reveals His character.
Jesus is the Word of God.
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” John 1:1-3, 14 NKJV
But we also learn His voice through fellowship with Him.
If my wife, Jaika, made a video about herself that included everything. Everything she loved. Everything she hated. All the details of her personality.
If I spent all my time studying that video, I would know a lot about her. But it’s not the same as knowing her through spending time with her.
In the same way, reading about God is not the same as having a conversation with Him.
At the end of John’s Gospel, John says that if everything Jesus did were written down, he does not suppose the world itself could contain the books that would be written.
God is greater than what can be contained in a book.
We learn about Him through Scripture, and we learn about Him through spending time with Him and getting real insight from Him in day to day scenarios.
A way to cultivate this is to not only talk at God, but take the time to listen to Him. Spend more time in prayer listening than talking.
As we spend time with Him, we begin to recognize what comes from Him and what does not.
The Solution
The solution to self hatred is not to think more about yourself, whether good thoughts or bad.
It is to think more about Christ.
When God reveals sin, do not identify yourself with the sinful nature or the sin being identified.
Do not agree with condemnation.
Do not agree with the accuser.
Do not turn inward.
Fix your eyes on Jesus.
Turn away from what is dead.
Turn toward God.
Receive His conviction as an act of love.
And remember:
You are commanded to hate what is evil.
If you belong to Jesus Christ, you are not evil.
The sinful nature is being crucified.
The old self has been put to death.
Your life is now hidden with Christ in God.
The more you are filled with Jesus, the less occupied you become with yourself.
And that is ultimately the answer to self hatred.
P.S. If you’re continually struggling with self-hatred as you commit to repentance, download the corresponding podcast episode so that you can fill yourself up with God’s truth anytime you’re being attacked with condemnation.
Like with all of our ministry content, it’s always free to listen.