The Way We See Ourselves

I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. 

Leviticus 26:13

I used to think that the concept of self-love was just new age messed-up theology, a mere excuse to resist humility and the concept of sin. Some of it is, but there is truth to having confidence in the value God places on us. It is important that we learn to see ourselves through His gracious eyes if we are going to walk through the valleys. This level of confidence is something I have always struggled with. I continue to struggle with it as God is teaching me to love who He made me in this season of life. 

He recently revealed to me that my lack of self acceptance was hurting me. It was keeping me from standing strong in the face of battles. While I thought I was confident enough, I see now that, as Jesus followers, we are always learning new ways to see ourselves and others.  Know that I write this to encourage you as well as myself. 

The Holy Spirit recently revealed my heart as He shined a spotlight on some very ugly feelings that self love brought out in me. And I realized that although I have heard the topic taken to extremes before, it was obvious that just thinking about loving myself in this way made me feel shame and fear...stuff Jesus doesn't do. He revealed that the result of believing Him is to adopt His way of thinking. Eventually faith changes our mind. Believing Him leads to thinking like Him when it comes to people, life, ourselves and everything else.

 

If we don't agree that we are wonderfully made and that what He makes is beautiful and valuable, we won't be able to agree with Him about others. If we can't look beyond our flawed humanity and see the beauty He put in us and the potential He gives us, we will always be suceptible to cowering before the enemy. We were made to be warriors. 

Warriors don't cower; They stand strong in the face of adversity. They know their calling and value and are not easily manipulated. When we don't believe Him about our own or anyone's value, we open a place for the enemy to work and divide. Satan will go so far as to turn some of what we like to call "humility" into self hate. He can turn real humility into pride as well. Be careful with this! There is a true difference between humility and self hate and I'm not sure most of us know what that is. 

 

Know this: any idea of yourself that makes you fearful and cower from spiritual war is not humility. Any idea you have that keeps you from holding your head high is one that endangers you from finishing the race. God wants us to be made whole. He wants us to finish a good race. Self-hate is a very subtle but very common way Satan works to keep us from doing that. 

God wants us to hold our heads high because, no matter how weak we are, how flawed we are, how much we've sinnned and continue to make mistakes, He has made provision for mercy and a bounty of grace. Know your weaknesses. Admit them. Take them seriously, but don't let them cripple you.