Just because God has made us righteous and guiltless in Christ doesn’t mean we automatically experience the benefits of who we are. Our minds are like audio players, constantly running a message. We see our entire lives in the light of this message. We interpret everything in a way that reinforces our fundamental beliefs about ourselves.
I may interpret everything I do as great, meaningful, more special and significant than what anyone else does. Everything I see reinforces my inflated prideful opinion of myself:
I am more important than other people. My ideas are always better, my insights more profound, my work more skillful. Without me, my family and church would crumble. I am indispensable. God needs me on his team, and everybody should be grateful I’m around. I will see that I get all that’s coming to me. After all, I deserve it.
This is the kind of attitude that Romans 12:3 warns us not to have: “Don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought to think.” However, the verse also says we are to think of ourselves with sound judgment, which means we are to think accurately about ourselves. Thinking accurately means that not only are we not to think too highly of ourselves, but neither are we to think too lowly of ourselves. Some people certainly do have a pride problem, but many others have a self-depreciation problem. This is the sort of audio they runs through their minds:
I am a failure, a loser. I lack the personality, good looks, and brains of successful people. I will never be as good as others. I don’t do anything right. Nobody likes me, and those that seem to must just be pretending. God can’t use me. I’m not a worthwhile person and probably never will be.
Both the prideful and the self-depreciating views are a product of a conformed mind, a mind that takes its cues from the world or self or Satan rather than from God. The transformed mind is very different. The audio that runs through it says this:
I am far from perfect, but I’m immeasurably valuable to God. He specially created me in his image, and I’m unique. Christ thought enough of me to die for me and not consider it a waste.
As a Christian, I’m a child of God. I am clothed with Christ’s righteousness. God is on my side. According to his promise, I will spend eternity with him. God has seen me at my worst and still loves me.
This means that regardless of how I feel about myself and how I think others feel about me, I am loved by God. I am totally secure in Christ’s unconditional and unfailing love. And as long as he has me here, there’s a great purpose to my life.
As you re-read these messages, consciously reject the wrong ones and embrace the right one. The more you fill your mind with the biblical truth about who you are, the more your self-image will come into line with God-revealed reality.
