Our View of Ourselves

Is our view of ourselves important to our spiritual health? 

Yes. But not in the way you might think. 

Our modern culture values: 

1. Feeling good about ourselves/having a good self-image. 

2. Having self-confidence, believing we can do anything we set our mind to do. 

3. Accepting ourselves just as we are. 

But the Bible tells us our spiritual health depends on: 

1. Denying ourselves/having a good God-image. 

Matthew 16:24-25: "Then Jesus said to his disciples, 'Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.'"  

Romans 12:3: "Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you." 

2. Having confidence in God’s power and purposes. 

1 Corinthians 4:7: "For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not?" 

2 Corinthians 10:12-13: "We do not dare to classify or compare ourselves with some who commend themselves. When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are not wise. We, however, will not boast beyond proper limits, but will confine our boasting to the sphere of service God himself has assigned to us, a sphere that also includes you."  

2 Corinthians 12:10: "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." 

Ephesians 2:10: "For we are God's handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do."  

3. Admitting that we are a work in progress. 

Philippians 1:6: "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus." 

Philippians 2:12-13: "Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose." 

Ephesians 4:22: "You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires." 

The world tells us that most of our problems come from thinking too little of ourselves. God tells us that most of our problems come from thinking too much of ourselves and too little of Him. 

See the Bible Love Notes Collection on Biblical Self-Esteem.

 

Bible Love Notes