Self Esteem And The Christ Follower (What does the Bible Say?)

One of the more popular ideas that has crept into the church is that we all need to build and maintain proper self-esteem! We're living in a day in which people are lovers of self and our society has become self-centered and completely satiated with self and self-hyphenated words like: self-esteem, self-worth, self-love, and self-fulfillment! Dozens upon dozens of best-selling Christian books are laced with this theme! Some examples are: "Love Yourself," "The Art of Learning to Love Yourself," and "Celebrate Yourself!" The question Christ followers need to ask is, "does the Word of God teach this?" Does the Word of God teach that Christ followers need to build self-esteem? Those who answer yes usually support it with the verse, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:39). They wrongly interpret this verse by saying that you must properly love yourself in order to love anyone else. But that is not the meaning of the verse! The verse assumes that we all love ourselves just fine! In other words, if we would show the same regard to others that we do in fact show for ourselves, we would be loving them as God commands! Even those who go around speaking negatively about themselves do not need to focus on loving themselves. Their problem is precisely that they are too self-focused! They need to consider the needs of others ahead of themselves which will eliminate that problem. The mark of biblical love is self-sacrifice, not self-esteem! Consider the case of a person that's suicidal. The problem is not that he does not love himself. Rather, he loves himself more than he does anyone else. You may be thinking, "how can this be?" He is not considering what his suicide will do to friends or family. He's not thinking about them! He's only considering himself! He's in pain and he wants out of his pain. My conviction is that we need more Christ-esteem! My conviction is that when we as Christ followers grow and mature in our relationship with God through Christ Jesus, we begin to derive our value from our union and identification with Jesus Christ! Part of the maturing process as Christ followers is the ability to see ourselves according to our new life in Christ! Esteeming Christ in our lives is the way to go! Your move. Be encouraged!