A Revelation on Self-Esteem
Every now and then, I find something that I know is going to stick with me for life. It’ll become a “Campbellism” someday because I’ll forget where I heard it and take credit for making it up myself.
So here’s this big idea about self-esteem. This came from Tim Keller and his wonderful little book called The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness. Keller points out that for ages, the issues in society came from people with too much self-esteem. People with hubris…people who ‘powered up’ and ruled over others, people who took other’s stuff, hurt and even killed them. Churches kept people humble with sermons to “lowly, wretched sinners, saved by grace”.
Only in recent history have we decided that our issues are from too little self-esteem. The mentality of continually building everyone up, having little league games where no one loses and everyone gets a trophy, and hours with counselors trying to isolate the defining moments that brought us down…well, all that is new. Today’s sermons are rarely about sin and failure. They’re about building us up. Feeling good about ourselves. About having ‘our best life now’.
Keller unpacks a powerful concept….the idea of no self-esteem. He says we’re all looking for “an ultimate verdict that we are important and valuable. We look for that ultimate verdict every day in all the situations and people around us. And so every single day, we are on trial. Every day, we put ourselves back in a courtroom.” The ‘evidence’ we strive to present is our performance. It’s “Performance ≈ Verdict”. If we perform well in the eyes of others, of God, and ourselves, we think we’ll get a positive verdict. When we don’t, well…that’s a problem.
Christianity teaches the reverse. Through Jesus’ performance on our behalf on the cross, it’s “Verdict ≈ Performance”. “It is only in the gospel of Jesus Christ that you get the verdict before the performance” says Keller.
When Jesus was baptized and God said ‘You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased’ (Mark 1:11) that was before he had performed. Before he was tempted and didn’t give in. Before he called his disciples. Before he healed the sick and raised the dead. His ‘verdict’ came before his ‘performance’, and because of him, ours does too.
But with the verdict in, we can give the performance. How can we worry about failing, being criticized, about not being accepted when the performance is already in? It’s why ‘being yourself’ is such a blessing. Because God already approves, I can just be me and not try to be more or different.
Like Paul, we can say, ‘I don’t care what you think. I don’t even care what I think. I only care about what the Lord thinks.’ And He has said, ‘Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’, and ‘You are my beloved child in whom I am well pleased’. (Rom. 8:1 and Mark 1:11)
Question: Will you live your life embracing His love and acceptance? Will you train yourself to think of yourself less and others more? Tell us here.
Quotations from Keller, Timothy (2012-04-01). The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness. 10Publishing. Kindle Edition.
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Responses (5)
I used to be into Christian Rap Music. That last paragraph took me back to one “song”:
“You like what you like, and I like what I like
Forget about what we like, it’s all about what HE likes.
And He likes to be the One in full control
Of your heart, of your mind, of your body and your soul;
And I’m down with that, ‘cuz He’s the one that made me.
The power over evil is the power that He gave me.
But, not only that. He gave me the mind
to catch the feet that move the feet to find the groove and drop the rhyme.”
Haha, while that is quite the throwback, this word was good for me. Every day lately has been somewhat of a rat race, bouncing here and there making sure everyone in my path is pleased with my performance. While I’m not going out today to slack off on my duties, my spirit is going to rest in His love. Verdict. I like it.
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Rocks!
Over the last few weeks god has really been dealing with me about my lack of compassion for others. I had a christian friend tell me about an injury and I felt god prompt me to pray for him right then and I did not. I complained to god about my fearfulness and god really spoke to my heart telling me that is is not that I am so fearful, but that I lack compassion. this really hit me hard and yet, as I look back over the course of my last few years, I know it is right. so yes, I very much need to train myself to see people as Jesus does, to feel for them as He does, and to learn to love them and think of them above myself and my agenda. This is something that I shared with my mentoring group just last week as we talked about our identity in Christ.
Thank you, by the way, for this mentoring system. this is my second group and all the guys from my first group are leading a group this year as well. Last year we had 4 guys in one mentoring group. It caught fire and this year we have 26 guys in 4 groups. Very exciting!
There’s nothing quite like seeing God take His Gospel to another generation through someone you invested in and influenced. Way to go Brian!
Wow.