Bible Text: Ephesians | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living |

According as he hath chosen us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love: Having predestined us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will. Ephesians 1:4-5, KJV

“If I could write a prescription for the women of the world,” wrote Dr. James Dobson, “it would provide each of them with a healthy dose of self-esteem and personal worth. I have no doubt that this is their greatest need.” And I have no doubt that the same thing generally is true for men. What many today need, perhaps more than anything else when it comes to their outlook on life, is an understanding of who we are in God’s sight. Knowing how God looks at us does more to help us know how we should view ourselves than just about anything else.

Jesus, who knew people from the inside out, clearly recognized the value and worth of a single individual–even the worth of one who was considered to be on the bottom level of society. On one occasion Jesus walked from Tiberias to Sidon and, from the record of Scripture, talked with only one woman, a Grecian who was considered far beneath the dignity and status of a Jew. Jesus preached to the multitudes, yet He had time for the individuals who came to Him–Zaccheus, the tax-collector, with whom He had dinner; Nicodemus, the religious leader, who came to Him by night. He even had time for a long conversation with a woman at the well of Sychar, whose reputation was tainted by many marriages.

At the same time, Jesus recognized the value of the individual when He said you ought to love your neighbor as yourself. Without a dose of self-esteem or self-love you cannot adequately function. The woman who is constantly comparing herself to others, saying, “I’m not as beautiful or as lovely as so-and-so,” has not recognized the fact that she is an individual, unique and distinctly different from all the other women in the world. She has aptitudes and insights that no other woman has in all the world. No one thinks with her brain but her, or sees with her eyes but herself.

She must recognize that God made her as one of a kind, and if she can recognize the fact that God loves her and accepts her as a unique individual of worth and value, then she can learn to accept and love herself with a proper understanding of self-love. If God loves you, you must learn to love yourself. If He accepts you, you must accept yourself. If He has forgiven you, you must forgive yourself; and above everything else, you must resist the urge to look like or be like someone else.

Insight: There is a great deal of difference between self-love and the love of self. Self-love deals with your knowledge that you are a person of worth and value without which you cannot adequately function, while the love of self relates to pride and haughtiness. It is this that makes you egotistical and a pain-in-the-neck to be around. An individual who always is putting himself or herself down is a person who has not come to recognize his own true value or worth. Knowing who you are in God’s sight frees you to be all that God intends you to be.

Shortly before his death the English poet, E. E. Cummings, wrote the following to a high school student: “To be nobody-but-myself–in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody-else–means the hardest battle any human being can fight, and never stop fighting.” The greatest freedom that you can ever achieve short of sprouting angel’s wings is the freedom to be yourself under God without trying to be anyone else.

Are you feeling short on self-worth? Take a look at yourself from God’s perspective and you will discover there is a reason for lifting up your chin and letting His love flow through your heart and life.

Resource reading: Ephesians 1:4-14