What does the Bible say about how to stop hating yourself?

Is there distrust and distress in your minds? See if it be not because you are still saying "I," "I," and losing sight of God's grace. You may indeed have faith, but you want simplicity of heart in looking at God's grace. It is better to be thinking of what God is than of what we are. This looking at ourselves is at the bottom really pride - a want of the thorough consciousness that we are good for nothing. Till we see this we never look quite away from self to God. Sometimes perhaps the looking at our evil may be a partial instrument in teaching us it; but still even this is not all that is needed. In looking to Christ it is our privilege to forget ourselves. True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves as in not thinking of ourselves at all. I am too bad to be worth thinking about. What I want is, to forget myself and to look at God who is indeed worth all my thoughts. Is there need of being humbled about ourselves? We may be quite sure that will do it.

It is better to be thinking of what God is than of what we are. This looking at ourselves, at the bottom is really pride, a want of the thorough consciousness that we are good for nothing. Till we see this we never look quite away from self to God. … In looking to Christ, it is our privilege to forget ourselves. True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves, as in not thinking of ourselves at all. I am too bad to be worth thinking about. What I want is, to forget myself and to look to God, who is indeed worth all my thoughts. Is there need of being humbled about ourselves? We may be quite sure that will do it.

It is better to be thinking of what God is than of what we are. This looking at ourselves at the bottom is really pride, a want of the thorough consciousness that we are good for nothing. Till we see this we never look quite away from self to God. Sometimes perhaps the looking at our evil may be a partial instrument in teaching us it, but still even that is not all that is needed. In looking to Christ it is our privilege to forget ourselves. True humility does not so much consist in thinking badly of ourselves, as in not thinking of ourselves at all. I am too bad to be worth thinking about; what I want is to forget myself and to look at God, who is indeed worth all my thoughts. Is there need of being humbled about ourselves? We may be quite sure that will do it.

We may talk in a lowly way of ourselves, but self-depreciation is no evidence of the lowly mind, rather the reverse. In self-depreciation we are, after all, talking about ourselves, and this may be the worst form of pride — the pride of humility. The lowly mind does not think of self — good or bad — it thinks of others to serve in love. It is the ignoring of self, not the depreciation of self.

You are looking for feelings of forgiveness; but what do your feelings have to do with it? God's forgiveness is what God feels about you, not what you feel. When He forgives He feels all right about it, or He wouldn't forgive. Don't be looking at yourself; look at what God says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive." After you have confessed your sins to Him, believe He has forgiven your sins just as He says He would. Believe Him to be true to His promise. Don't make Him out to be a liar by doubting what He says.

You are looking for feelings of forgiveness; but what do your feelings have to do with it? God's forgiveness is what God feels about you, not what you feel. When He forgives He feels all right about it, or He wouldn't forgive. Don't be looking at yourself; look at what God says, "If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive." After you have confessed your sins to Him, believe He has forgiven your sins just as He says He would. Believe Him to be true to His promise. Don't make Him out to be a liar by doubting what He says.

A believer may awake, or perhaps be rudely awakened by some open fall, to a sense of personal guiltiness, such as must constrain him to write bitter things against himself. The exercise of soul which ensues is profitable, or otherwise, according to the clearness with which the immutability of the counsel of the God of peace is discerned and still held fast on the delinquent's part. The natural effect of such experiences is to shock and consequently to enfeeble, if it cannot destroy, the feeling of confidence towards God. The heart condemns. God, who is greater than our heart, knows all things. Does not He also condemn? The evil, of what kind soever it may be, He most surely does, but not the self-abased confessor of it. The blood of the everlasting covenant has marked the believing sinner's person for eternal acceptance with Him who, because He is the God of all grace, is likewise to the receivers of His Spirit's testimony the God of peace. He has assumed these titles as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. They express to us distinctly what He is. And being such He so remains, with whom is no variableness or shadow of change.

The great and glorious fact of the gospel of God's grace is that, although the believer's conscience always should condemn sin and failure in himself, God never condemns him for it. God always sees the believer in Christ as having already passed through, and left behind him forever, all the condemnation and judgment due him for sin. So he is ever free and beyond the reach of condemnation and judgment.

80 And see how God has taken care to shew me what sin is. But see how He has taken care, if through grace your hearts hate sin, to shew you how He has made an end of it, and "brought in eternal righteousness." You are guilty? Very well, you are justified by blood. Defiled? Cleansed from all sin by the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son. You have offended God? You are perfectly forgiven. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of his grace." Well now, says God, you must try My love. You cannot have thoroughly happy and blessed affections with God till your conscience is purged. Let your father be the kindest in the place, and the child know it, if he has been naughty he will skulk away. He gets a good conscience, and will run into his arms. When the conscience is purged, who did it? Why, God did it. He has made me His child, given me the very same name. Christ has called me His son, and therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew Him not.

Behind this lies the old error that my value depends on what others think of me. I could mention without hesitation a number of unmarried brothers and sisters whose faith and service is of great value for the saints. And while it is certainly good to mention our appreciation of this to those Christians, this is again on the level of how I value other believers. We do not become valuable by what we do (even if it is to marry), but are valuable because God has created us and we are precious in His eyes (see Ps. 139:12–16).