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THE
BIBLE
Can we trust a book written 2000 years ago?
EYEWITNESS
Did the writers of the New Testament get their picture of Jesus right?
GOD
- MAN
Is Jesus really God?
RESURRECTION
Did Jesus really rise from the dead?
RELIGIONS
With so many religions, why Christianity?
SUFFERING
If there is a God, why is there so much suffering?
TRINITY
Understanding the Trinity.
SCIENCE
The complementary nature of Science & Christianity.
FORGIVENESS
What it is and why it matters?
GUIDANCE
How does God guide?
REPENTANCE
What it is and why you can't get to heaven without it.
BORN
AGAIN
What does it mean to be converted and born again?
SAVING
FAITH
The kind of faith that will get you to heaven
ASSURANCE
Can I know for sure that I am going to heaven?
TRUTH
What is truth and does it matter?
MORALITY
Does it matter how we live? A Christian view of morality.
THE
CHURCH
God's vision for his family, the Church. A call to the churches of the
new millennium.
PURPOSE
How
can I find a great purpose for living?
IDENTITY
Who am I; Finding my true identity as a human being and as a child of
God.
SELF-ESTEEM
How
can I feel good about my self? The Christian basis for proper sel-esteem.
LIFE AFTER DEATHChristianity's Hope & Challenge.
THE CROSS
Why did Jesus Die? What the Bible says about the Cross.
Grace
The importance of grace in the New Testament.
Worth a great deal, though unworthy
At this point it might be helpful to look at the difference between worth and worthy. All human beings have broken the laws of God and in that sense we are all unworthy. "All of us have sinned and fallen short of God's glory" (Romans 3:23). However, no human beings are worthless. All are valued by God and may be redeemed if they will put their trust in Jesus.
How we view ourselves will depend to some extent on the moral choices we have made. Ravi Zacharias, a well-known Christian apologist, tells in A Shattered Visage the story of a businessman who described to him his memories of a life morally mangled. This man said:
It started with my imagination that reinforced certain wrong desires. Then having made repeated choices that were clearly wrong, in betrayal after betrayal I convinced myself that what I had indulged in I needed. The more I convinced myself that I needed it, I soon redefined who I was as a person. Now, as I look at what I have become, I can no longer live with myself. I hate who I am. I am emotionally running, but I do not know where to go.
The problem is that, to some extent, we have all made morally wrong choices. However, the wonderful message of God's amazing grace is that once we have repented, turned to Christ, and received his total forgiveness purchased for us by his death on the cross, we are both fully accepted and unconditionally loved. Though we continue to struggle with right and wrong as God begins to work on us, we are fully valued as persons. Edward Dayton and Ted Engstrom, in Strategy for Living, put it like this:
The reason the Christian can pursue the goal of excellence is because his failure to achieve is not a reflection on his person. That is established. We are not measured in God's sight by our successes or our failures.
God's grace (his undeserved goodness given us in Christ) humbles us by fully recognising our wickedness, yet does so without degrading us as it still declares our infinite value. At the same time it exalts us without inflating us, as it does not avoid the issue of our sin.
A good story illustrating the transforming power of God's grace is that told by Russell McGuiness in a recent issue of Challenge. Russell began committing professional robberies when he was 11 years old. Suffering from low self-esteem and with a family background that he likens to the white version of Once Were Warriors, he says he only ventured into crime to get attention. He felt it was something he could do well at—a skill that might finally give him the admiration and approval of his peers. In the 1970s he says he was on the police's most wanted burglar list, earning himself the nickname of the "Rubber Man." However, through living for some years with a devout Christian couple, his life went through a radical transformation and he was baptised in 1985, eventually becoming a staff member of YWAM (Youth With A Mission). However, he says, "I did a lot of church stuff because I still needed approval and recognition and the desire to be loved." The real change came in his life with a revelation of God's grace. He says, "It was sometime in 1997 that I realised the love of God as a father. I had a revelation of God's acceptance of me, just as me! It enveloped my whole being. I didn't need to earn God's love or approval." He is now pastor at the Pakuranga Apostolic Church which he has called House of Grace.
To get a proper balance it is important to note that the New Testament not only speaks of our value and our natural love of ourselves, but also commands us to deny ourselves. I have not read a more balanced description of these seeming opposites than that given by the Anglican scholar and pastor, John Stott, in an article 'Am I supposed to love myself or hate myself?' in Christianity Today. I shall quote him at some length:
What we are (our personal identity) is partly the result of the Creation (the image of God), and partly the result of the Fall (the image defaced). The self we are to deny, disown, and crucify is our fallen self, everything within us that is incompatible with Jesus Christ (hence Christ's command, "let him deny himself and follow me"). The self we are to affirm and value is our created self, everything within us that is compatible with Jesus Christ (hence his statement that if we lose ourselves by self-denial we shall find ourselves). True self-denial (the denial of our false, fallen self) is not the road to self-destruction, but the road to self-discovery.
So, then, whatever we are by creation, we must affirm: our rationality, our sense of moral obligation, our masculinity and femininity, our aesthetic appreciation and artistic creativity, our stewardship of the fruitful earth, our hunger for love and community, our sense of the transcendent mystery of God, and our inbuilt urge to fall down and worship him. All this is part of our created humanness. True, it has all been tainted and twisted by sin. Yet Christ came to redeem and not destroy it. So we must affirm it.
But whatever we are by the Fall, we must deny or repudiate: our irrationality; our moral perversity; our loss of sexual distinctiveness; our fascination with the ugly; our lazy refusal to develop God's gifts; our pollution and spoilation of the environment; our selfishness, malice, individualism, and revenge, which are destructive of human community; our proud autonomy; and our idolatrous refusal to worship God. All this is part of our fallen humanness. Christ came not to redeem this but to destroy it. So we must deny it.
Stott adds the perceptive thought that it is the cross of Christ that teaches us both attitudes. On one hand it is the measure of the value of our true self since Christ died for us. On the other hand, it is the model for the denial of our false self, since we are to nail it to the cross and put it to death. (See Romans 8:13; Galatians 5:24).
Perhaps a true balance was given by a rabbi who put it like this:
A man should carry two stones in his pocket. On one should be inscribed, 'I am but dust and ashes.' On the other, 'For my sake was the world created.' And he should use each stone as he needs it.
It is this awareness of both our value to God, and our moral weaknesses which we share with all humanity (which should make us kind to ourselves and to others) that enables us to have a realistic opinion of ourselves. We don't need to put ourselves down. It is dishonouring to God to denigrate what he has made or the gifts he has given us. At the same time, we can't think of ourselves as better or more important than others. Paul says, "I tell each of you not to think you are better than you really are. Use good sense and measure yourself by the amount of faith God has given you" (Romans 12:3). J. B. Phillips translates this verse as, "Have a sane estimate of your capabilities." The Living Bible says, "Be honest in your estimate of yourselves." After all, God designed the human body so that we can neither pat our own back nor kick ourselves too easily! We also need to recognise and develop for his glory the gifts God has given to each of us.
And in order to feel comfortable with ourselves we need to be growing as Christians. We need to grow in allowing the Holy Spirit to do his work in transforming our character. Paul says that "God's Spirit makes us loving, happy, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled" (Galatians 5:22, 23). We also need to grow in our relationship to Jesus and our love and gratitude to him. Peter says, "Let the kindness and the understanding that come from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ help you to keep on growing" (2 Peter 3:18).
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PART 2 - The basis of a proper self-esteem; The creation of a loving God
Worth a great deal, though unworthy
