A Christian view of Self-Esteem

In today’s humanistic culture many people define self-esteem as “feelings of worth based on their skills, accomplishments, status, financial resources, or appearance.”

In other words... how you feel about yourself depends in large part on the car you drive; the clothes you wear; the education you have; your job and professional accomplishments; all the cool things you can do; the balances in bank accounts and investment portfolios; and of course how pretty or good looking you are.

This kind of self-esteem can lead a person to feel independent, prideful and to indulge in self-worship, which dulls ones desire for God.

James 4:6 tells us that “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” If we only trust in our earthly resources, we will inevitably be left with a sense of worth based on pride. Jesus told us, “You also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty’” (Luke 17:10). 



This does not mean that Christians should suffer with low self-esteem. It only means that our sense of being a good person should not depend on what we do, or what we have, or what we look like, but rather on “who we are” in Christ. Our true value is only found in our relationship with God. Valuing the things He values, living in harmony with Him earns us His “esteem” and should enhance the feelings we have of ourselves.

We need to humble ourselves before Him, and He will honor us. Psalm 16:2 reminds us, “I said to the Lord, ‘You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.’” Christians attain self-worth and esteem by having a right relationship with God. We can know we are valuable because of the high price God paid for us through the blood of His Son, Jesus Christ.



In one sense, low self-esteem is the opposite of pride. In another sense, low-self-esteem is a form of pride. Some people have low self-esteem because they want people to feel sorry for them, to pay attention to them, to comfort them. Low self-esteem can be a declaration of “look at me” just as much as pride. It simply takes a different route to get to the same destination, that is, self-absorption, self-obsession, and selfishness. Instead, Christians are to be selfless, to die to self, and to deflect any attention given to us... towards the great God who created and sustains us.



The Bible tells us that God gave us "worth" when He purchased us to be His own people (Ephesians 1:14). Because of this, only He is worthy of honor and praise. When we have healthy self-esteem, we will value ourselves enough to not become involved in sins and attitudes that enslave us.

Instead, we should conduct ourselves with humility, thinking of others as better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3). Romans 12:3 warns, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”

NEXT WEEK... more insights and thoughts on Self-Esteem

Low Self-Esteem... Satan's Deadliest Weapon

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. - 1 Peter 5:8

Maybe he’s been chewing on you? Some of the most powerful weapons in Satan's arsenal are psychological. Fear is one of these. Doubt is another. Anger, hostility, worry, and of course, guilt. Long-standing guilt can be hard to shake off and you don’t easily recognize the symptoms or how guilt is manifest in your life. It seems to hang on even after a Christian accepts God’s gifts of forgiveness and pardoning grace.

An uneasy sense of self-condemnation ensnares many Christians like a disabling paralysis. They find themselves defeated by the most powerful psychological weapon that Satan uses against Christians. In today’s humanist oriented culture, where there’s a psychological explanation for everything wrong with people... it’s called low self-esteem.

Low self-esteem is a gut-level feeling of inferiority, inadequacy, and low self-worth. This feeling can shackle Christians in spite of God’s promises, in spite of His love for you, in spite of your faith and knowledge of God's Word.

Fear, Doubt and Uncertainty

I am sure God grieves over this matter of how “low self-esteem” affects the minds of Christians. He grieves over the paralysis of low self-esteem that blunts our potential to be effective servants for Him. Jesus told a parable about the talents. The man with the one talent was immobilized by fear and feelings of inadequacy. Because he was so afraid of failure, he didn't invest his talent, but buried it in the ground, thinking that playing it safe was his best course of action. His life was a frozen asset - frozen by fear of rejection by the master, fear of failure, fear of comparison to the other two who were making their investments, fear of taking a risk.

He did what a lot of Christians with low self-esteem do - nothing. And that is exactly what Satan wants for Christians - to be so tied up by fear, doubt and uncertainty that we are tied down, frozen, paralyzed, settling into a life far below our potential.

Low self-esteem destroys our hopes, dreams and our visions. Maybe you’ve heard this... "Neurotics are people who build castles in the air; psychotics are those who move into them; and psychiatrists are the ones who collect the rent"!

Fear “of” the Promised of God
One of the Bible’s greatest illustrations of what fear, doubt and uncertainty can do to one’s confidence is in the Old Testament, in the Book of Numbers, chapter 13 and 14. It’s the account of God’s vision for His people, a bold and beautiful future. It’s His promise to bring them to a land that would be their own... where they would live in harmony with Him. He has painted for the Hebrew people, newly freed from Egyptian slavery, a magnificent picture of “their” Promised Land... one flowing with milk and honey, a land, they would possess. God guides them to the very edge of their Promised Land; they were poised on the verge of living out the bold plan God had crafted for them. What happens? Moses get orders from the Lord... to send into the land a military-style recon team to look it over, check it out... report back.

Moses sent the cream of the crop, the best man from each tribe. And he fully expected that the realities they would discover in Canaan would confirm God's plan and promise. In a sense they did, for all of the scouts agreed... It's a fantastic land. There was an abundance of fruit, crops, live stock, everything you would want or could imagine. And the honey... well it was the sweetest you would ever taste! (Numbers 13:23) So what happens...? Read the following report of the recon team...

28 But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there.The envoys began to weep and to be filled with fear. Only Caleb and Joshua had a different story. Oh, they agreed on all the facts. Their observations were the same; but because their perceptions were different, their conclusions were different. Why? Because Caleb was a man of a different spirit (Numbers 14:24). Caleb and Joshua had no grasshopper esteem of themselves. They said, "Of course the people are big, but don't fear them. The Lord is with us. We don't care how big they are; we can eat them up just like bread, and we can do this because it is God's will for us. It is God's dream, and He delights to do it in us and through us. He'll give us our dream and give us our land. 31 But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” 32 And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. 33 We saw the Nephilim there (the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim). We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.” Numbers 13:28; 31-33 (NIV)

The dream was ready. God was ready. But the people were not, because of their fear, doubt and uncertainty... the fuel of low self-esteem. They forgot that they were children of God, benefactors of His unfathomable power and might. They had already forgotten what He had done to free them from slavery in Egypt just a few weeks before.

Do you sometimes feel the way this recon patrol felt as they scouted the Promised land? Probably so, and more often that you care to admit. Our dreams are delayed or destroyed because Satan tricks us into thinking of ourselves as grasshoppers, small, insignificant, incapable of doing the things God desires from us.

And as a result we never realize our full potential as a son or a daughter of God. We are filled with fears and doubts... inferiority, and inadequacy. Think about your relationship with God. It follows quite naturally, that if you consider yourself inferior or worthless, you will think that God really must not love and care for you. Such thinking often leads to those inner questions and resentments, which begin to foul up your relationship with God. After all, isn't it somewhat His fault that we are this way? He made us as we are. He could have and probably should have done it differently. But He didn't. And then we become critical of our design, and it isn't long before we blame the designer.

This is how our concept of God becomes contaminated and our perception of how He feels about us gets all mixed up, finally ruining our relationship with Him.

Last but not least... low-self esteem sabotages our Christian service. What is the biggest obstacle that prevents members of the body of Christ from functioning harmoniously as parts of the body? What is the first thing people say when you ask them to do something in the body of Christ? "Teach a Sunday school class? I can't stand up in front of people." "Share at the next ladies's meeting, or men's breakfast? Oh, I couldn't do that!" "Go knocking on doors to invite souls to Easter Service? That would scare me to death." "I'm tongue-tied. Public speaking is not my gift, but I can do something else."

Seriously, Christians are not a bunch of superstars. 
Have you not noticed, God doesn't work with too many superstars in doing His work. Remember Moses... he lost no time in telling the Lord about his stuttering. Mark ... ran out on Paul and Barnabas on a mission trip. Paul was right when he said that not many wise and noble, or many supermen or wonder women, are on God’s team (see 1 Corinthians 1:26-31).

The trouble with low-self esteem, you know what it is? It robs God of marvelous opportunities to show off His power and ability through our weaknesses. Paul said of himself... But He [God] said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:9-10)

Why could Paul say his weakness was strength? Because God used whatever his weakness was to show off His strength and power. Paul mastered the ability to appropriate the strength of God in everything he did in his life. You can too, because that same “strength” Paul possessed lives in every committed Christian... the Holy Spirit.

Nothing sabotages the Christian life more than thinking so little of yourself that you never really give God a chance to work His power in you.

We must never forget who we are, what we are and how much God loves us. We must give God a chance to shine his perfection through us.

NEXT WEEK: More on this humanist idea of “low self-esteem.”

Anxiety... born of Earthly Desires

The modern world is a rat race! Our adversary Satan, uses the world’s condition to stimulate fear, doubt and uncertainty in us. It doesn’t take long for the things of the world around us to become our primary concern, pushing God’s kingdom out of our hearts and minds entirely. 

Consider your own life, those of family members and close friends. They’re always busy and stressed out from trying to accomplish a thousand things each with a deadline. Gotta get this or that done, now, right now! It’s very rare to find a person who is not stricken with the disease of anxiousness. Maybe it would be good to re-read  Matthew 6 to get some insights on this disease of anxiety.

Life in our world is full of many concerns stemming from the absence of certainty and control over our future. The psychological and physical effects of anxiety can be overwhelming for our minds and bodies. Are you a person who’s life is dominated with anxiety? Are you consumed with worry? Here’s a short summary of some of the controlling effects anxiety may be having on your life...

The emotional effects of anxiety may include feelings of apprehension or dread, trouble concentrating, feeling tense or jumpy, anticipating the worst, irritability, restlessness, watching (and waiting) for signs (and occurrences) of danger, and, feeling like your mind's gone blank as well as nightmares/bad dreams, obsessions about sensations, feelings of deja vu, a trapped in your mind feeling, and feeling like everything is scary.

The cognitive effects of anxiety may include thoughts about suspected dangers, such as fear of dying, being in a traffic accident, falling from a bridge and similar dreadful fears. You may... fear that the chest pains you experience from time to time are a deadly heart attack or that the shooting pains in your head are the result of a tumor or aneurysm. You feel an intense fear when you think of dying, or you may think of it more often than normal, or can’t get it out of your mind.

The behavioral effects of anxiety may include withdrawal from situations which have provoked anxiety in the past. Anxiety can also be experienced in ways which include changes in sleeping patterns, nervous habits, and increased physical responses such as extreme finger or foot tapping.

Do you experience any of those conditions? Have you ever stopped and tried to analyze your worries? Why do humans so easily succumb to worry? We can learn to manage anxiety and other worry produced emotions by understanding what the Bible says about them.

We worry because we’re slaves to our own desires and will. Worries increase when we become focused on the things of this world. We have desires, and if our desires aren’t fully met we experience frustration to all out devastation. We worry because we’re too concerned about earthy things, and not spiritual things. Jesus told people not to worry about earthly things, for they are subject to decay and can be quickly lost, but heavenly treasures are secure for eternity (Matt. 6:19; 6:25). We worry because we’re afraid God won’t work things out for our good. In other words, we have very little faith in what God has promised (Matt. 6:30). We worry because we’re not content. We’re not satisfied with God providing our needs (Matt. 6:32), He must also provide our wants. And these aren’t just our present wants, but the future ones we haven’t even thought about.The Bible teaches that we should deal with each day's problems when they occur and not be obsessed with future concerns that may never happen (Matthew 6:34).

All worries spring from the fact that we have a strong desire for something which, if not met will bring down our spirits and make us lose our joy.  There are many legitimate concerns worth consideration in our lives. But if we become hyper-focused on life’s issues, then Satan turns our concerns into obsessions, to the point that we’re dwelling on whatever is on our minds to the exclusion of “the things of God”... the most important “thing” being our relationship with Him.

Worrying does nothing for our situation as Matthew 6:27 says... "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?”  Worry is the cause of millions of deaths – heart attack, stroke, high blood pressure, etc. Our Lord does not want us to live this way, but rather with the peace of the Holy Spirit filling our hearts.  It is not God’s will for us to be slaves! God saved us to be free and immersed in His Kingdom business; not to always be chasing after our own will. Matthew 11:28 says... "Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest."

While we can never be completely free from worry, the Bible shows us how to minimize worry and anxiety in our lives. Philippians 4:6-7 says... do not worry about anything, but with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving make your requests known to God and then the peace of God will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

We can have genuine hope and security in a troubled anxiety ridden world, because the Lord upon our confession of faith and obedience to His plan for salvation has given us the Holy Spirit. God Himself is dwelling within us, working out His fruits in us over time (Galatians 5:22-23;24-25). This means that we can be delivered from this disease of anxiety and inordinate concern for our own will. We must conduct our journey in Christ, in lock-step with the power that permeates our lives... The Holy Spirit.

Matthew 6:33 says... "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you." It may sound cliche, but it’s a universal truth... focus yourself toward the heavens, towards the things of God, and you will see the things of earth becoming smaller, and insignificant. The kingdom of God is like this.  Etch these three”Ifs” in your mind and heart...

If we make Christ everything to us, we will find ourselves less and less concerned about the cares of this world. 

If we are single minded – setting our main goal in life to become conformed to the image of Christ, and to press into the Lord, becoming one with Him, then we will find ourselves being delivered from obsession with our own will, and the cares of this world.  

If we trust only in the Lord, knowing that our Lord is in full control, that He is on our side (Rom 8:31), then we can rest assured that we defeat the debilitating effects of worry and anxiety and find (don’t be discouraged when it doesn’t happen instantly) the spiritual peace we all desire.