Question:
I am new to preparing devotionals and sermonettes. I wanted to know if you could give me some verses that have to do with self worth and how to value one self?
Answer:
I’m not sure about “preparing devotionals and sermonettes”. I do practice or promote techniques or systematized ways to prepare teaching (not saying it’s wrong; I just don’t do it myself), and I’m not sure I even know what a “sermonette” is.
Regardless, you ask me about verses about “self worth” and how to “value one’s self”. In today’s world that would mean a bunch of psychobabble drivel about self-esteem, learning to love yourself, focusing on your self-worth, learning to forgive your “self” and elevating “self” by means of positive reinforcement and promotional self talk.
Self, self, self, self, self….
Big problem… it’s worldly humanist HORSE PATOOKEY that is not only detrimental to ALL people (saved or not) but also devastating to Christian doctrine, practice and life. It is completely and 100% OPPOSITE of Bible truth, and wholly incompatible with Christianity in every sense.
Our “self worth” and “value” as Christians come from outside of our “self” and we are only to boast in our value in the sense of how God sees us because Jesus died on our behalf. We are “valued” as heirs and adopted children of God DESPITE of our “self” (Romans 8).
Below are some verses about what the Bible says about our “self”. The modern Church would do well to DUMP the humanist blabber that has invaded our teaching, and go back to what the Bible says about our true SELF. The truth about our SELF causes us to be “poor in spirit” (Matt 5) and sends us running to God instead of sitting around talking about how our “esteem and worth”.
A proper understanding of our nature from the Bible is the only way to genuinely understand Scriptural “worth” and “esteem” correctly. At that point, we realize that “worth” and “esteem” is totally outside and apart from our SELF and we glory that our worth is what GOD THINKS OF HIS CHILDREN, rather than what we think of ourselves. The Puritans most certainly had the correct idea when it came to the matter of how to view ourselves.
Consider any “worth” we have in and of ourselves in light of these verses:
- (Jeremiah 17:9) – “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it? (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Romans 3:10) – As it is written: “There is none righteous, no, not one; (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Isaiah 64:5-6) – You meet him who rejoices and does righteousness, Who remembers You in Your ways. You are indeed angry, for we have sinned— In these ways we continue; And we need to be saved. But we are all like an unclean thing, And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags; We all fade as a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, Have taken us away. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (1 John 1:8) – If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Genesis 6:5-6) – Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And the Lord was sorry that He had made man on the earth, and He was grieved in His heart. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Psalm 14:2-3) – The Lord looks down from heaven upon the children of men, To see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, They have together become corrupt; There is none who does good, No, not one. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Matthew 15:19) – For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Romans 5:12) – Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned— (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Galatians 5:16-21) – I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh. For the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law. Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Matthew 5:3-5) – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, For theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, For they shall be comforted. Blessed are the meek, For they shall inherit the earth. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Proverbs 16:19) – Better to be of a humble spirit with the lowly, Than to divide the spoil with the proud. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Isaiah 66:2) – For all those things My hand has made, And all those things exist,” Says the Lord. “But on this one will I look: On him who is poor and of a contrite spirit, And who trembles at My word. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
- (Romans 12:3) – For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith. (NKJV; emphasis mine)
– – – – – – – – – – –
We do not have innate and self-possessed-or-originated “worth” or “esteem” in relation to the commonly accepted versions of it today. Our worth comes from our relationship with God, our position in Christ and the value that God places ON us (and assigned to us via Christ) as His children.
This is an important distinction because humanism (the basis of modern psychology and counseling) teaches that man is INNATELY GOOD, and the Bible declares man innately sinful and wicked. These two philosophies are diametrically opposed and cannot BOTH be true.
Pick one.