God highly esteems you; please learn to agree with him! Our world and your flesh tear you down or falsely glorify you, and neither of these will satisfy you. Jesus redeemed you by his blood, and God esteems you as his daughter. He highly values you. When you believe and cherish this promise, you will have peace. Please join me as I look at our esteemed value versus the many lies our flesh and world tell us about ourselves.
The devil does not want you to know your position in Christ, the high and humble status. Satan is happy for you to claim you have many qualities you lack, so you pretend to be someone you are not; and you fear others will find out you are a fake when you do this. Or Satan will allow others to hurt you, often from your childhood, so you believe you are worthless and deserving of that abuse. Either way, Satan does not want you to know the truth about yourself.
Please understand both truths. Claiming you are someone you are not, will leave you feeling empty. If you envy others for their gifts and believe God has deprived you by not giving you those gifts, you will not enjoy the gifts God already gave you, (John 3:27b “No one can receive anything unless God gives it from heaven.” & 2 Cor. 10:12b, “But they are only comparing themselves with each other, using themselves as the standard of measurement. How ignorant!”) And if you insult yourself and say you are less than you truly are, you will miss the value God places upon you, (Isaiah 66:2, “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” & Isaiah 43:4b “…you are precious to me. You are honored, and I love you.”)
The drive for perfection and the fear of letting others down (or fear of their judgment) may cause us to think we must become greater than we are capable of being. This might mean staying up too late to do extra work, or saying “Yes,” to excessive demands, or pushing ourselves to do work that is too hard for us. Inwardly we do not think we are “great” but outwardly, we try to act or look that way, and we only hurt ourselves. Psalm 127:2 admonishes and then reassures us, “It is useless for you to work so hard from early morning until late at night, anxiously working for food to eat; for God gives rest to his loved ones.” Romans 12:3b also admonishes us, “Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but think of yourself with sober judgment, according to the measure of faith God has given you.”
If we strive, because others have what we do not have or pretend we have the strengths they have (but we lack) we might also pretend to be what we are not. Again, Scripture has an answer. Paul says in Romans 12:16, “Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.” Yet this might seem like a contradiction of all I just said. I said God highly esteems us. Then why would Paul say to not set our minds on high things? He referred to any arrogance and any striving for things God has not given to us. And we should never boast that we are better because we are gifted, because God gave us those gifts. Paul says so in 1 Cor. 4:7, “For who makes you differ from another? And what do you have that you did not receive? Now if you did indeed receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?”
We must learn to esteem ourselves according to what God says of us, and many of us struggle more in this area than in thinking too highly of ourselves. We know, in our heads, that Jesus paid the ultimate price for our salvation. He adores us. But we struggle to bring this truth into our hearts. I love this passage in Zephaniah 3:17, “The Lord your God is with you, the Mighty Warrior who saves. He will take great delight in you; in his love he will no longer rebuke you, but will rejoice over you with singing.” Despite memorizing this wonderful passage, I still allowed others to disrespect me, and I accepted their cruel words and insults. In my mind, I even thought harshly of myself mentally berating myself for being lazy or careless for even small mistakes. I needed to root out lies from my past to learn to esteem myself as God does.
My paternal grandfather harshly mistreated my father, so my dad often treated me and my three siblings harshly too. I did not realize I was repeating what my dad did, because I was mostly only harsh with myself. My daughters were so tender, that God helped me not be as harsh with them. One time when I did fall into that behavior and was gruff, my very young daughter actually said, “Mommy, you are being too harsh with us.” That stopped the generational curse with my daughters. I did not want to be harsh, even with my words, and not even on rare occasions. I worked very hard to never do that again. But I did not realize I would still do that to myself until this year when I began to see patterns in my life.
I pushed myself too hard many times. I expected far more of me than I should have. I actually scrubbed my toes so harshly, I got an infection in them. I also realized my self talk was harsh. And I contrasted this with how I would call my daughters “sweet heart,” using soft talk with them. I tried to be patient when they were tired. I spoke to them words of encouragement. But I did not use this same self talk (in my mind) with myself. So I began to ask God to help me. I purposely began to mentally call myself kind names. I would say, “Take it easy, Debbie,” and “don’t push so hard,” and simple things like that. I did not say these things as mantras or for self esteem. I said these things, because I already know God says these things to me. Look at Psalm 103: 8-14 “The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. He will not constantly accuse us, nor remain angry forever. He does not deal harshly with us as we deserve. For his unfailing love toward those who fear him is as great as the height of the heavens above the earth. He has removed our sins from us as far as the east is from the west. The Lord is like a father to his children, tender and compassionate to those who fear him. For he knows how weak we are; he remembers we are only dust.” Especially note the last verse (14): God knows how weak we are.
I do not shame myself by admitting to my weaknesses; rather I agree with God that I have weaknesses and then treat myself kindly. In the evening, I often become very tired, and I do not feel physically strong. Now instead of calling myself lazy when I have trouble thinking clearly or getting as much work done, I give myself grace. I remind myself that I can do more work tomorrow or only do something easy that evening. I have to rebuke the side of me that still wants to make harsh demands of myself. The devil speaks through that accusing voice. I am patient with myself. If I worked as hard as I could but did not get as much work done as I wanted, I do not berate myself for being lazy. I accept what the King James version of Matt. 6:34 says, “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof,” meaning (in New Living Translation) “Today’s trouble is enough for today.” That also means that today’s work is enough for today.
I did not realize how much unconsciously-held-lies of my past still misdirected my words and behavior today. Old habits are so hard to break if they come from our unconscious mind. We cannot challenge what we do not acknowledge. Then we might keep doing self harming things, because we do not realize false beliefs tell us to do so. God is still bringing those lies to my conscious mind so I can learn to challenge them the way the Lord challenges those lies. Now God is helping me to agree with him; he esteems me highly. I agree with him! Oh please agree with God too. Accept the sacrifice Jesus made for your sins, and accept his wonderful redemption of you, and his great value of you.
I pray I’ve blessed you with this week’s post. Please let me know about lies God is bringing up to your mind too. Let us encourage one another to grow in our faith and to throw away all the lies that hinder us. May God bless you with week.