The Good News About
You
Everybody has to feel good about themselves for some reason. The need is built-in. It's part of being made in the image of God. God meant for Adam and Eve to have a sense of well-being—not pride, but a feeling of worth and ability. He so honored this first man and woman that He allowed them to choose. In the cool of each day He came and talked with them. He gave them responsibility to care for the Garden of Eden. God provided this man and woman with all they needed to "feel good" about life.
Everyone knows only too well that something destructive happened to the man and woman. As Creator, God provided abundantly. As creatures, they were given only one limit. Only one tree in a garden full of trees. They were not to eat of it. When they chose their own way instead of God's, all sense of well-being disappeared. They wanted to hide their bodies; they wanted to hide themselves; they began to blame each other for their dilemma.
The disorder that began in Eden plagues us to this day. Life seems designed to exploit our feelings of well-being. Competition, selfishness, an emphasis on the physical instead of the spiritual — life seems distorted. We either end up
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feeling unsure of ourselves or we become skilled at proving something to ourselves about ourselves.
Nothing is as great an impediment to getting along with others as being ill at ease with yourself. Self-acceptance is crucial to accepting others, and it is a necessity for living with yourself. It is not humility that makes a person exclaim, "I don't like me!" or "I can't do it." It is rather a destructive root of unbelief about self and personal worth that has its roots in the folly that took place in Eden.
Robert Frost once said, "Nothing scares me so much as someone who is scared." We know what he means because we have experience that too. It is a negative cycle set in action. Another's fear binds me in some peculiar way and I react instead of action as a free agent. Suddenly I lack spontaneity. Her self-consciousness makes me self-conscious, and I must struggle to free myself from the web of her restraint.
The person who cannot accept herself sets in motion myriads of negative cycles. When she sends out negative impulses, the reactions she receives confirm her self-view. Because surveys reveal that contemporary women rate low self-esteem and depression as their most serious problems, I think the issue needs to be addressed head-on.
Negative people are hard to live with, no matter who they are. If you have ever met Eeyore, the gray donkey from the Winnie-the-Pooh stories, then you'll know what I mean. Eeyore lives in a gloomy corner among the thistles of the Hundred Acre Woods, a corner that matches his personality. When Pooh says, "Good morning to you, Eeyore," he replies, "Good morning to you, too, Pooh. If it is a good morning, which I doubt." He is almost totally absorbed with his own moods. He rarely moves out in positive action toward others, and is almost accusative when someone acts positively toward him. He adds hilarity to the stories because of his ridiculous
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self-consciousness and the ludicrous postures others take to reassure him of his worth. When we read about Eeyore, everyone laughs because we know people like him!
In this way, people with low esteem seem to live against others, rather than for others. When Miss Low Self-Esteem enters a room full of people, she automatically assumes no one will like her. Or perhaps certain kinds of people will not like her. She projects her view of herself onto others. Her self-defense is often to decide that she doesn't like any of them. So There! It's a cover-up for expecting rejection. And it probably means that she has never learned to trust anyone in all her life!
Her chances for natural friendship are gone before she begins. Entering with a negative idea, she proceeds to collect available data to confirm her self-view. Negative feelings take on many hues. "He will not find me interesting." "I am not a good conversationalist." "Everyone is more sharply dressed than I am." The list is as varied as any person's insecurities. No matter how or why she does it, the end result is a terrible kind of slavery to self. People who think lowly of themselves usually think too much about themselves.
Low self-esteem usually has roots in our past: rejection by someone important at a critical stage in life; love given as a reward for performance; a repressive lifestyle during childhood; comparisons within a family; family status in a community — all can produce a pattern of internalizing or living warily in relationship to others. When the antenna is always out to bounce off others, we take our self-view from how others react to the signals sent out. This is a disastrously self-defeating process.
Pressures from the world heighten a sense of worthlessness. Knowledge increases so rapidly; we can never know all there is to know nor keep up with new trends, new
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ideas, or even a current vocabulary. What's "in" can drive anyone looking for security to utter despair. The consumer rage, "You'll attract him if you use _____ product," or "To be successful, try _____" undercut any simple sense of security. A person can begin to feel, "There is no place for me."
Add to this all the trivia published about women today, and you've entered into a cult of feminine uncertainty. To wear ruffles or to strive to be president of the company — or both? On one page of a journal is an article about the kind of women men like; on the next page is a stirring assault on male chauvinism. One psychiatrist writes about bargaining with your children and not repressing their independent spirit. In another magazine of the same month a study commission reports on permissive parenthood and its effect on juvenile delinquency. One article shouts out "Who Needs Men?" And another tells you have to capture one and get him to the altar.
But it's not womanhood that is basically at stake here; it is personhood. The struggle to accept once's self and have some identity is the cornerstone for building a meaningful life. We must come to terms with personal worth. Who can tell us who we are and what we are worth?
God can. He is the major presupposition on which this book is built. In the final analysis, His is the only opinion that counts. He is the Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He is the ground of our being. He is the all-powerful, all-knowing, ever present Love. He is ultimate reality. He is the perfection of fatherhood. And He has told us about our value; His actions have demonstrated our worth; His daily concern verifies our personhood. Who we are is best defined by whose we are. Discomfort and unrest fade when we know God as Father.
We have grown used to the phrases people use to define
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value. Her father is worth a million dollars. She has made worthwhile contributions in that field. The crowd-stoppers, the celebrities, the producers — these are worthwhile. And then some scientific buff tells us that the chemical value of a person is about $3.71. Inflation. It used to be 98 cents.
The fact is that the world's standard of worth has become so much a part of our thinking that we have trouble hearing and understanding what God is saying to us about our value in His sight. God has openly declared our personal worth at Calvary. To question His declaration is unbelief, not humility.
Everyone needs to visit Calvary for two reasons: (1) to see the awfulness of our personal sin that necessitated the death of Christ and (2) to see that God thought we were worth dying for. Both are necessary if we are to understand anything about God's love. Emphasizing either one to the exclusion of the other weakens the value of one. Understanding both is to comprehend the good news of the gospel.
Many people have just enough religion to make them miserable. They believe in a God who takes sin seriously, who has reminded human beings of moral failure, but they stop there. Keenly aware of inadequacy, they live in the slough of despond — worthless, sinful, guilty. They find no comfort in God for their lack of self-acceptance. His verdict only confirms what they already know about themselves. They may say they believe their sins can be forgiven, but God's love is conditional. It is based on an if. If love allows people to experience little freedom from their feeling of inadequacy. They are more conscious of themselves than of God.
Ellen had this kind of a problem. She had recounted a troubled childhood to me. Her mother died when she was fourteen, and an overly busy father took over the reins of the household. No one had time to listen to Ellen's needs or to understand her loneliness. So she sought comfort
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elsewhere — with older boys who claimed to love her but who only used her. Each time she felt the ashes of no love, of exploitation, and declared it would never happen again. But her personal need make her vulnerable in this area.
During her freshman year at a university she met a girl who told her about God's love and forgiveness. It was bigger than anything Ellen could ever imagine and she hungered to know God and be loved by him. She spoke of her faith in Jesus Christ and of God's forgiveness. But in reality it was a long time before she really accepted the forgiveness God offered her. Her sins were always before her. She needed constant reassurance from others as to the value of her person. Fear that she might slip again plagued her. Then she would lose God too.
Often this kind of misery over self is found in homes or churches where strong teaching about sin is regular fare but where the freedom Christ offers is seldom mentioned. The psychological bent of a person may cause her to hear only verses that speak of "denying yourself" or "hating your own life" or "in my flesh dwells no good thing." These phrases feed an already developed low self-esteem and are taken out of context to add to her woe.
Phillips Brooks once said, "The true way to be humble is not to stoop until you are smaller than yourself, but to stand at your real height against some higher nature that will show you what the real smallness of your greatness is." I like that. It is true to the teaching of the Bible. God has declared our value, our personal worth. He created us with our present genes; He can redeem all of the experiences that make our life. So stand up tall; give Him all that you are. We do not need to fuss over ourselves. Boasting is excluded when one is in proper relationship with God.
Others progress a step further. They know God loves them
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and has accepted them, but are quite sure that He loves them because they have trusted Him and because they do their very best to be as good as possible. Because love is risky. Given an imperfect action, the love disappears. But even worse is the high standard of performance for the wrong reason. He loves because. People caught in this trap usually come from backgrounds where love is given on a basis of performance, and withheld if there is disapproval.
I am increasingly convinced that a major cause of the despondency, the ineffectual living, the lack of freedom, the feeling of worthlessness so common in today's world is a failure to understand what God has done in redeeming us — and how and why He has done it.
Recently I heard of a postage stamp that was auctioned off for $205,000. It was a small piece of paper scarcely 3/4 of an inch by an inch. I would never have paid such a price for such a thing! But it's value did not depend on my feelings. Its value was found in the heart of the man who was willing to pay such an enormous price for it.
Just so our value does not lie in our own feelings. It lies in what One was willing to pay to redeem us. God declared our value at Calvary. Your value. My value. He said openly, "I think you are worth dying for!" God said that. If you doubt your own worth, you are disputing the God who made you.
That's the good news the Christian has to share. You are loved. God loves you. He sent his Son to Calvary to take care of your sin problem — the sins which make God seem so far away from you. God offers to save you from your sin, your self, your inadequacies, your depressions — because He loves you. He offers this redemption as a free gift, but a gift has to be received to be a valid gift. And receiving this gift involves a personal confrontation with the living God. Being a Christian is not merely believing a
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set of truths or being a moral church-goer. It is establishing a relationship with the God who loves you, who has designed you to live in fellowship and harmony with Himself.
God means for His children to live with an enormous sense of well-being. He made it possible for us to be free from all our old hangups and the opinions that bind us. He constantly assures those who trust Him of His steadfast love. "You shall be mine, says the Lord Almighty, in the day when I make up my treasured possession." He calls us His children, and we enter into the wonder of the Fatherhood of God. He promises His continued presence with us: "I will never leave you nor forsake you." He tells us not to be anxious because He knows all our needs. His resources are available to us as we trust Him. Those who come and eat at His table are satisfied.
The apostle Paul demonstrated this as he wrote from prison, "Rejoice in the Lord always." His letters ring with a sense of well-being. Yes, he is conscious of sin. He described himself as the chief of sinners, but quickly he went on to rejoice in the deliverance of the Lord. Yes, he was pressing on to the prize of the high call of God in Christ Jesus, but not because God's love was dependent on his striving. God's love was his source of joy and freedom even in prison. He declared that we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.
What we are getting to now is a basic understanding of what justification is all about. Justification is one of the most important concepts in the Bible. It is not common to our vocabulary and therefore needs explanation. Translators of modern English editions have struggled to find an adequate synonym and have failed. A word study of justification requires paragraphs if we are to comprehend its marvelous
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truth. Translating the word with the phrase "put right with God" conveys only part of the truth.
Salvation means being justified. Justification is a declaration by God; it is a legal act. We are declared righteous by God. It is not something that results from what we do, but rather something that is done to us. God regards us as righteous the moment we exercise faith. Furthermore, He declares us righteous even though we deserve His wrath. We bring no goodness to Him which makes His declaration necessary. No, He acts on our behalf because of Calvary. The only action we can take is one which makes it personally effective for us — our individual faith in Christ, that His death fully paid for our sins, cancelling the debt that was against us.
Often when a question is asked about the meaning of "justified", someone will define it "Just-as-if-I'd never sinned." That's a neat little handle, but like many simplifications it doesn't convey the whole truth. It is as inadequate in defining God's action toward us as the house, swept clean but left empty, mentioned in Jesus' parable. God does not treat us simply as if we had never sinned; more than that, deserving His wrath, He gives us His righteousness. Not just a "slate wiped clean," but a slate inscribed with the righteousness of Jesus Christ.
Furthermore, justification does not mean that we are made righteous in the sense that we are no longer conscious of sin. Justification makes no actual change in us; it is a declaration by God concerning us. Failure to understand this puts people on a spiritual roller coaster and our misunderstanding is the devil's hey-day.
On any given day you may be conscious of failure, of having disappointed yourself and God. You find yourself thinking, Now I've done it. God has turned His back on me. In fact, I am going to have a hard time restoring His approval of me. And if you believe that, you turn to wallow in your
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failures, knowing discouragement and defeat. You are sure you are going to have to do penance or work very hard at the Christian life to be acceptable again. It's the devil's lie.
Your condition does not yet conform to your position. Your position, if you are a Christian, is this: declared righteous by God. The whole process of the Christian life is to grow, to change so that our condition is more and more conformed to our position in Christ. The Bible calls this sanctification.
That is why it is so important to understand justification. Doubts come about ourselves. We must turn from ourselves to see God's verdict. Yes, He has pronounced us guilty. We do not take this lightly. "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness" (Romans 1:18). But God has done something about our guilt. We see both His justice and His love at Calvary. And we read and believe one of the most important verses in the Bible: "They are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24). Declared righteous by faith.
If God accepts us, are we not insulting Him if we fail to accept ourselves? "Since we have been justified through faith we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ," Paul writes in Romans 5:1. If we have peace with God, why not peace with ourselves as well?
I am not talking about an egotistic self-love; I am talking about the kind of self-acceptance that affirms our personal worth and frees us from the prison of self-absorption. When we need constant reassurance about our personhood, we have set self at the center. The psalmist reveals the secret to mental, spiritual, and physical health so beautifully: "I have set the Lord [not self] always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be shaken. Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure" (Psalm 16:8-9). Notice
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that the heart, the mind, and the body — the whole person — is affected by this perspective.
Our problem with reflecting on self is that our thoughts either lead us to self-praise and self-satisfaction or plunge us into discouragement and despair. Whichever it may be, inevitably any view of God is shut out and we lose the wonder of being justified. When we get hold of what it cost God to justify us, and the love that led Him to do it, our self-view takes on biblical perspective. God has redeemed us; we can lift up our heads and shout praises. God's love is an in-spite-of kind of love — love that is safe, that lets us dump our load honestly before Him, assured of His constancy.
Why is justification so important to understand? Because it is the only worthy ground of our own self-acceptance. Your family may have given you an adequate self-concept by their support of your personhood, whether they claim to know God or not. But the spring of their ability to do that is the love of God revealed in Christ even though they do not know this. In contrast, you may come from a scarred background. Whether your battle in self-acceptance will ultimately be easier or harder than the person from a secure background depends on your openness to receive and believe. Perhaps you will appreciate the value of justification more fully because you are more desperate to do so. Someone has said that there are no super-Christians, just super-receivers. Regardless of background, God offers us the freedom of knowing our personal worth is bound up in His character. He believed we were worth dying for; He declares those who believe justified! "They are justified freely by His grace through redemption that came by Christ Jesus" (Romans 3:24).
This verse is like John 3:16 in conveying the message of our salvation. We have already spoken of the meaning of being justified. Notice other important words in these verses:
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grace, gift, redemption. All three words indicate that we have done nothing to deserve being declared righteous or justified. It comes to us freely, as a gift of God, in response to our faith. Not everyone receives the gift, but those who believe are justified.
Grace is a wonderful word! Grace is the exercise of the spontaneous love of God. Although we deserve His wrath, He chooses to give us His love. Notice that it is His grace. Grace comes only from the heart of God. But it cost God something — the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. Because God is holy and just, something had to happen before our forgiveness could become possible. Our sins were paid for by the death of Christ. He ransomed us. Our redemption came to us through Christ Jesus. Thus, Paul goes on to say, God proves himself to be both just and the justifier of all who believe in Jesus.
Understanding this led Martin Luther to pen:
Lord Jesus, Thou art my righteousness
I am Thy sin;
Thou hast taken upon Thee what was mine
Thou has set upon me what was Thine;
Thou hast become what Thou wast not
That I might become what I was not.
This is what it means to be made free. "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free," Paul wrote to the Galatian Christians. God wants us to be free to be who we really are. Yet so few have entered into His freedom. Meeting a woman who is genuinely free to be herself, with her hangups dumped at the foot of the cross and acting without self-consciousness, is so rare an experience that it scares some people into a corner. Such a woman should be the norm for Christian womanhood.
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She may not be average, but she is normal. And God wants to raise our averages.
What is such a woman free to do? She is free to love God. She is free to love others. Appreciating that God took the initiative in our redemption — and keeps on taking the initiative in individual lives — she is free to follow his example. She reaches out to others on the basis of love, not only need. She is free to forgive because she knows herself forgiven. She accepts herself because God has accepted her.
Lacking this freedom, some women are like tightly closed buds, atrophying on the vine. Afraid to open up, they do not dare risk the bloom lest it be less beautiful than someone else's.
Others become harping critics, quick to point out error in someone else and slow to love. Others don't criticize, they just internalize, never letting anyone know who they really are. They don't risk exposure or love or acceptance. Some play games, wearing the mask of a role they have chosen, sometimes a very spiritual role. Those are outwardly pious and inwardly barren, still unknown to anyone else or themselves. Others talk too much, skirting all the issues which might reveal their real person. And still others become authorities on any subject, even Bible-quoters, to hide blatant insecurities.
Increasingly women are trying to prove their personal worth by achieving in the marketplace of the world. Honors, paychecks, positions, beauty — any bid for recognition can soothe the nagging doubt and keep us from facing ourselves. It is at this very point that our concern for rights for women may lead us astray. Issues of fair opportunity, employment, and paychecks are important. The creation mandate to "subdue the earth" was given to both female and male, and vocationally there would be no closed doors for women who
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have the ability and the calling to pursue a given field of study. But when all the doors are open, we will still have the human problem of personal worth. We are not equally gifted; we do not have equal opportunities even within our own ranks. Each woman is different. The woman who possesses the epitome of what other women long for still faces her lonely, uncertain self.
To define our worth by giving us new things to do, better jobs, or larger paychecks is still to miss the heart of our need. Our worth is not bound up in the position we hold, in what we do, or in what we own. That may only be a new kind of bondage, fraught with competitiveness and comparisons.
We make our own prisons. God's invitation is to come out. Knowing some restless, seeking woman, ill at ease with herself and with her world, I have often thought, She needs to sit on the Lord's lap and let Him love her and quiet her a bit. I have sat there often myself and come away refreshed in my own person. It's the Lord's promise, you know. "As a mother comforts her child, so will I comfort you" (Isaiah 66:13).
