This could quite possibly be the most personally convicting piece that I have posted to date!  ”Yeah, yeah, talk it up would ya,” says the cynic, who goes onto affirm that, “such is just a tactic to get us to read the whole thing!”  While such a confessional may know me too well, if I may frame it in such a manner… which is that this post has been sitting by itself as a draft, as it has required the love and tenderness that recent time hasn’t allowed, and as I have worked on it recently, probing it so that it concisely (used rather loosely) encapsulates what I am trying to make clear, I can not help but ask these questions of myself, pointing the blow-torch within!

Or, I could just say that I am being sincere!  Nah, didn’t think that would work!

Oh well, with all that in mind, it is time to traverse…

I am sure we have all heard the concept of “self-esteem” bandied about, probably affixed with the word “low” preceding its coming onto the verbal scene. In fact, the reader may have even used it, even very recently, and let’s be frank, such a concept seems to sound reasonable enough.  So and so even talked about it at church, and a Christian book that I am reading or the phone-a-friend is reading, has even referenced it!  Anyway, when all is said and done, shouldn’t we have a positive perception and conception of ourselves!  In other words, frame it which way you want, in a Christian context, the warp and woof associated with this concept underscores a general cultural acceptance and further than this, integration!

If integration is the right concept, then the question that the header has and is communicating becomes even more pressing, as there may very well be a living enemy within the camp, one which has our consenting approval, even as it divests us of what should be our true humanity, as we flourish, in Christ!  Such is also a mute point at present, but suffice it to say, if one accepts the “esteeming” presupposition, the question still remains as to how, or on what basis, one is to attain such a perspective?!

Leaving that question aside, you may be thinking or asking for a clear statement or confession of where this verbose individual stands on the issue.  Therefore, it is time for this piece to conceptually streak…

It is my contention in this post, that the self-esteem movement is just another vehicle for a self-induced, for a self-absorbed narcissism, a narcissism that either rises or falls on the perceived success or failure that the individual in question decides is a valid or warranted basis with which to base his or her significance, worth, identity… and as a function of reality; cosmic or functional redemption.  In other words, such a conceptual reality would be cut off at the knees, if these signifiers were rejected as being unrighteous, insufficient, and ultimately irredeemable!  Our problem is that we, too often and too easily, get snookered into buying into the cultural practice of basing our identity on what we have accomplished, where we perceive we are in our cultural pecking-order, or what others say or believe about us, and in so doing we are like a crack-addict, who succumbs to a drug of such a limited dimension, but that can nevertheless, destroy the body, as an unchecked pursuit after self-esteem can very easily ship-wreck the sinking soul!

However, it does not have to be this way, and even as I write, I keep asking myself, why do we-including-me human beings accept such a small vision?!

Small vision?

You see, as I have stated, such a problem could be stopped right where it begins, in questioning whether such is a valid, correct, or biblical basis for grounding who we are, however, instead, we accept the cultural standard, thereby basing what is our functional redemption in some other basis than Christ.  I say, functional redemption, because those of us who are His, have found cosmic and complete redemption in Christ, and while this is true, bit by bit, moment by moment, exam by exam, sermon by sermon, boyfriend by boyfriend, peer by peer, job success by job success, blog post by blog post, too many of us, too often, base who we are, at that point in time, in something other than Christ, exclaiming in the midst of this mindless moment, that for us to survive, for us to be the people we need to be, we must have this to have our personal flourishing, we must have this to feel good about our self, to have our self-esteemed… and if and when we do not, we fall into the corner in our ever-diminishing vision of life, thereby functionally selling ourselves to something so small, something so pathetic, affirming that Christ has not been enough at such a time!

The sad and crazy reality of it all, is that all this “self-esteem” talk does not set off any alarm bells, yelling, “Your life is hid and found in Christ alone, He is the Source of Everything you need for Life and Godliness… Idolatry, Idolatry,” which subsequently, fails to put the very fear of a transcendent, radiant, and all-consuming vision of the reality of the God of all creation within to our very souls! Tragically, functionally at such times, we push the incorruptible God from off the throne, putting an image of a very corruptible person, which looks very much like what we see in the mirror.  You see, without buying into the conceptual reality of this redemption, we would not be looking inward or toward such a reality, and such highlights how easy, like Aaron, we can astonishingly, give in to building a golden calf of our own, even when it is conceptually clear that we have just been redeemed out of Egypt, even as we stand below the Mountain of God’s glory!

Why do we do it?  Why do we look within, instead of looking up?  Why do we seem to be forever falling for such a blatant lie, which is that something else can functionally do more for me, do more for you, than all the righteousness that is found in Christ alone?

The answer seems clear, but let’s take this down to the next level, as while we can call it self-esteem, as such is often the motivation and means, in reality, what is transpiring is none other than the Devil-old activity of Idolatry…

Martin Luther has spoken truly when he has said that the heart of man is an Idol Factory, which not only has the propensity to worship other objects, but as a function of reality, very often does so, and, it seems, without us ever realising it.  Even Friedrich Nietzsche understood this reality when he affirmed that there are more idols in the world than there are realities.

So you’re a Christian, you have accepted Christ as your substitutionary atonement, you worship the One True God, you even read your Bible, so you know the message of Romans 1:18-32, which affirms that it is those pagans who do freaky things with God’s creation, a.k.a. Idolatry, thereby willfully rejecting the truth that is evident therein.

Therefore, such could not be true of you, as you don’t even know how to carve!  Really?

The intersection between self-esteem as a practice of Idolatry is described cogently in the following words of Tim Keller from his new book, Counterfeit Gods, that contextualises Idolatry from the past with a couple of examples of what this looks like in the present…

We may not physically kneel before the statue of Aphrodite, but many young women today are driven into depression and eating disorders by an obsessive concern over their body image. We may not actually burn incense to Artemis, but when money and career are raised to cosmic proportions, we perform a kind of child sacrifice, neglecting family and community to achieve a higher place in business and gain more wealth and prestige.

Too often what drives this desire can be encapsulated with a drive to fill up that void that we describe as “self-esteem”.  Fail in these areas, and numerous others, and we lose something of ourselves, the result being that we now have “low” self-esteem!  NO!  The problem is not that we have low self-esteem, the problem is that we have bought into the lie that these pursuits were worthy and righteous enough with which to base our lives on, and that success in these areas was the Olympic pursuit of our living, and when failure does come about, we fall over, disgusted with who we have become, self-esteem lying in the gutter, all because our god COULD NOT SAVE US!

Again, why do we do such things?

Surely such highlights the sinfulness of sin, in that it not only leads us away from our Eden, but it also blinds us to the reality that this is even transpiring.  However, what we are also affirming at such times, is that our redemption, be it ultimate [for the unbeliever] or functional [for the believer], is found in something other than Christ, and at such times, in our heart of hearts, we have said that Christ is not enough, that Christ does not cut it, and on such occasions, we willingly bend the knee before this perverted reality, offering ourselves to it, giving it our obeisance, thereby saying that I must have you in my life for it to make sense, for it to be saved, for it to have worth, thereby committing Idolatry!

Sound too harsh?

Take another example, recently, in the midst of economic uncertainty, there have been many examples of Paradise Lost, where extravagantly wealthy individuals have lost it all, and have taken their own lives!  To exemplify this reality, Keller describes the following account of Paradise Found…

In the midst of the great financial crisis of 2008-2009 I heard a man named Bill recount that three years before he had become a Christian and his ultimate security had shifted from money to his relationship with God through Christ.  ”If this economic meltdown had happened more than three years ago, well, I don’t know how I could have faced it, how I would have even kept going.  Today, I can tell you honestly, I’ve never been happier in my life.”

Why couldn’t Bill have faced it before?  Because his god would have failed him, and when the most important thing in life is lost, when the defining principle with which we base our lives upon is found to be a fraud, and when the source for all our satisfaction has been sacrificed, our life ends with it!  You see Bill was always worshiping, but this has now moved from money, career, and status, to the Creator God.  As has been noted, Idolatry is the default mode of the human heart, and everybody worships something, and very often, particularly in our culture, it is a good thing that we make to be an ultimate thing!  We need to get that and grasp that point.  Desiring to do well in your work and be a success is a God-honouring pursuit, but if this good pursuit becomes an ultimate pursuit, such is deadly!

What is also a serious point to think through, as it relates to this culture’s self-esteem focus and talk, is that it tends to find its nexus in the children of our youth, particularly in the teenage years that are already prone to flights of fancy!  At such a time, when our children seem to be ruminating after one thing or another, we need to be pointing them to Christ as the Source of all their Searching, and not calling them to follow another god, their narcissistic self, which they do not seem to need any help with anyway!

If we are honest, sadly, we all are prone in our lives to, at least, a functional digression, which means that we must be vigilant and forever seeking the motivations and longings of our hearts, that are prone to wander, at a moment’s notice, before we are even aware that such has runaway!

Well then, what can we do about it, what can we put in place to “alarm set” against this searching…

If we can only diagnose the problem, without providing a pathway away from danger, we will only be knowledgeable sinners!

First, we need to continually guard our hearts (Prov. 4:23), because we understand that out hearts are prone to sin-sickness (Jer. 17:9), prone to do the things that our sanctified-thinking-straight-minds would never do (Rom. 7:15-20), and because of such realities…

Second, we need to have our minds transfixed in God’s Word (Psalm 1:1-6), as this is the vehicle that our minds need to have continual input-to-transformation (Rom. 12:1-2), with also persistent practicing of the spiritual disciplines, where prayer has a priority (1 Thess. 5:17), so that…

Third, we can become more aware of where these mines are located below the surface, and when such things are located, we need to flee and forsake all those things that we set up as proxy gods(1 Cor. 10:14), and

Fourth, such will help us replace this with an all-consuming vision, a vision of the greatness and grandeur of our God.  Right sizing our God will also help us to right size our gods, including a true perspective of how impotent it is to seek functional salvation within our own pursuits and activities under the Sun, when it is only found in the SON, encouraged as we meditate on all that we have in Christ.  In other words, ultimately and finally, if we just focus on removing the obstruction, and castigating ourselves, we run the risk of not only failing to fill this with a greater vision, but also of replacing one false god with another, our moral rectitude.  Therefore, we must have our hearts, our thoughts, and our longings dominated with radical digressions of the true dimensions of our Deity, the God of the Bible… or, if you prefer, as Tim Keller poignantly puts it…

The way forward, out of despair, is to discern the idols of our heart and our culture.  But that will not be enough.  The only way to free ourselves from the destructive influence of counterfeit gods is to turn back to the true one.  The living God, who revealed himself both at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if you find him, can truly fulfill you, and, if you fail him, can truly forgive you.

Wow!  I literally, could not have said it better myself, and we need to continually remind ourselves of that last line…

The living God, who revealed himself both at Mount Sinai and on the Cross, is the only Lord who, if you find him, can truly fulfill you, and, if you fail him, can truly forgive you.

What Keller is reminding us of is our need to inculcate the Gospel, and view it not as merely a means for our justification, but as a paradigm with which to ground, shape, encapsulate all our life in and through the Son!

Next time you base your functional redemption on how that Sermon goes, next time you are crushed by your mark in that paper, next time you judge yourself by those in your peer group, next time that boy or girl says…, and there will be potential for a next time, while such may cause you disappointment and reflection, remember that this is not basis for who you are, and what you will become, and such was never meant to be!

All you need has been given to you in Christ, and in Christ alone, and while such may seem like an esteemed idea, only He can give a God idea that is worth the life of your living, all as a result of His dying-to-live!

Soli Deo Gloria…

For the Fame of His Name

Man of Spin