What is a biblical understanding of self-care?
Matthew 19:19“Love your neighbor as yourself.”
1 Corinthians 6:19-20Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.
Ephesians 5:29No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.
Christians know that God wants us to be wise stewards of our money. How much more so should we be wise stewards of the bodies and minds God has given us! Christians know that we should love others. Yet often, we miss that God wants us to love ourselves in the same way. Self-care is part of how we honor God, and it equips us to love others more effectively.
Proverbs 25:28A person without self-control is like a city with broken-down walls.
1 Corinthians 9:25-27All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I am not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should.
Self-indulgence is the opposite of self-care. True self-care is about building healthy habits for our bodies, hearts, souls, and minds. It isn’t about seeking comfort and pleasure.
Proverbs 4:23Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.
Psalm 119:11I have hidden your word in my heart, that I might not sin against you.
Matthew 6:24“No one can serve two masters. For you will hate one and love the other; you will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”
Matthew 22:37Jesus replied, “‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart.’”
Romans 12:9Don’t just pretend to love others. Really love them. Hate what is wrong. Hold tightly to what is good.
What we keep in our heart—what we love and value most—sets the tone for our life. Teaching our hearts to delight in what is good and right is one of the best ways we can care for ourselves. Loving what is good isn’t a matter of stirring up emotions into a spiritual high. It’s about seeking God faithfully and growing, bit by bit, in our love and trust of him.
Matthew 5:4“God blesses those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”
John 11:35-36Jesus wept. The people who were standing nearby said, “See how much he loved him!”
In this life, we will lose things—and people—we care about. Caring for our hearts includes learning how to grieve in an honest and healthy way.
Proverbs 12:25Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up.
Proverbs 17:22A cheerful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit saps a person’s strength.
Isaiah 26:3You [the Lord] will keep in perfect peace all who trust in you, all whose thoughts are fixed on you!
Philippians 4:8Fix your thoughts on what is true, and honorable, and right, and pure, and lovely, and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise.
Self-care includes caring for our mental health—such as learning to reframe anxious or depressive thoughts.
Psalm 119:15-16I will study your commandments and reflect on your ways. I will delight in your decrees and not forget your word.
Acts 17:11The people of Berea were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, and they listened eagerly to Paul’s message. They searched the Scriptures day after day to see if Paul and Silas were teaching the truth.
Self-care involves caring for our intellect. That includes studying Scripture so we have a healthy knowledge of how to serve God.
Genesis 2:18Then the Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone.”
Proverbs 18:24There are “friends” who destroy each other, but a real friend sticks closer than a brother.
Hebrews 10:25Let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.
Self-care includes our social life. That may require maintaining a boundary to stay safe from a toxic family member. It may require joining a small group despite being tempted to isolate ourselves. Our relationships impact our wellbeing in many ways.
1 Corinthians 6:13-19You can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. . . . Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God?
Ephesians 5:29No one hates his own body but feeds and cares for it, just as Christ cares for the church.
1 Timothy 5:23Don’t drink only water. You ought to drink a little wine for the sake of your stomach because you are sick so often.
Taking care of our physical health should not be a distant afterthought. For instance, God takes sexual sin very seriously, specifically warning us about how it affects our bodies. Even mundane health issues—such as a chronic upset stomach—are something God cares about and something Paul considered worth addressing in his letter to Timothy.
Psalm 139:13-14You [Lord] made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
Isaiah 45:9“What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’ Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’”
Ephesians 2:10We are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.
Some of us struggle with caring for our bodies because we have a distorted image of ourselves. We have a hard time believing we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Some of us may even feel broken and doubt we can be used by God anymore. But our Creator loves us, and he has a plan and a purpose for each of us. We may not feel it right away, but the more we remind ourselves of these truths, the easier it will be to love ourselves—and our bodies—the way God does.
Psalm 63:1O God, you are my God; I earnestly search for you. My soul thirsts for you; my whole body longs for you in this parched and weary land where there is no water.
John 4:13-14Jesus replied, “Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.”
John 6:35Jesus replied, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”
1 Timothy 4:8“Physical training is good, but training for godliness is much better, promising benefits in this life and in the life to come.”
Just as our bodies have physical needs that can only be met by food and water, our souls have spiritual needs that can only be met by God’s presence in our lives. Worldly self-care might ignore those spiritual needs, meaning we try to find fulfillment in other things: wealth, affirmation, entertainment, or pleasure. That’s like trying to fill our stomachs with dirt or quench our thirst with mud. Such things may make us feel less empty for a time, but they cannot cure our thirst or hunger, and they often cause even greater harm. True self-care must never neglect our greatest need—God.
