There’s Your Self-Esteem!

We always read and hear about this or that prosperity gospel preacher doing their infamous rounds of teaching their congregations about self-esteem and being successful enough to have a good level of that.

Sadly, what most people do not realize is that there is no such concept as self-esteem as a Christian, because we are to die to the self. So if there’s no self, where’s the esteem?

However, if they insist on talking about some form of self-esteem, I’ll tell them straight where it’s really coming from.

It is not from whatever success you have in your business, in your marriage, in your relationships, in your career, your physique, your eloquence, your flair for this or that, or whatever else the world uses as yardsticks to measure success.

It is in the fact that despite being downright rotten sinners and the most unworthy people in the world, and probably the scum of the scum at the bottom of the cess pool if totally left to our own devices, that God, our Creator, loves us and we are His beloved when we are in Christ Jesus!

If that doesn’t lift you up, you don’t understand God’s love.

None of us can measure up to the yardsticks that the world uses to measure success, except for a handful. And even for those that have made it, what have they gained? Have they lost more than they have gained? I believe it is quite likely so.

So here we stand, dirty rotten unclean people in the flesh, unworthy of anything good, yet God has not only given us His only Son as the propitiation for our sins that by His grace we are not only heirs to eternal life, but also shall be with Him and to have the privilege to serve Him, our Creator who so lovingly formed us and loves us so much that He sent His only begotten Son to be the perfect sacrifice for our sins on the cross!

By this we know love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.

1 John 3:16

Even our faith in Christ is given of God through His Word!

So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.

Romans 10:17

When our Lord Jesus Christ said that apart from Him we can do nothing, I believe that He also spoke of the fact that without His love we are incapable of anything.

I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.

John 15:5

I say that because as we read further in John 15, we read of Christ Jesus’ exhortation to us to abide in His love, and to do so is to keep His commandments. Notice this also: that Christ Jesus mentioned that when we keep His commandments and therefore abide in His love, our joy may be full!

As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.

John 15:9-11

Here’s a parallel for you — remember the first time when you fell in love with that special man or woman? Do you remember that feeling of being so loved and you felt like you were able to accomplish anything?

Or for us married folks, having a loving husband or wife builds a solid foundation for our well-being, and that gives you the impetus to do your utmost for your family and to be the best husband or wife to your spouse?

God’s love for you is so very much more than that, and in some ways it’s the same principle — that without knowing how much we are loved, and to feel that love, we can do nothing!

So it is that whatever we do, we do so that God be glorified because He first loved us.

So it is that we seek to be more like Christ just as a child who loves his or her loving parents takes them as his or her role models and want to grow up to be like them!

So it is that we keep His commandments because we love Christ as like a child who loves his or her parents.

Dear brother and sister, here’s your “self-esteem” — knowing that:

In Christ, we are loved.

In Christ, YOU are loved.

Shalom Aleichem.

Illustration ‘Self-Esteem’ by Athenamat.