WHEN did the modern Self-Esteem movement begin? Well, I believe I actually know the answer to that question, although the exact time and with whom it did originate in a matter for debate and discussion. Nevertheless, society is reaping its bitter harvest from the self-esteem movement at just about every level. It is interesting to find secular journals like Scientific America and Psychology Today that once touted the pedagogical necessity for teaching and encouraging self-esteem now throwing up red-flags, talking now about the “new need” to teach “self-control.” Oh well, it seemed like a good idea at the time. But from a Biblical Worldview, the elevation of “self” has never been a good idea.
In those days there was no king in Israel; everyone did what was right in his own eyes. Judges 17:6
I BELIEVE we are seeing the unintended consequences of the self-esteem movement in a “hyper-individualism” not unlike the day of The Judges when everyone did “what was right in their own eyes” (Judges 17:6). Actually, some things never change and when self-control and restraint are lacking, the vaunting of self along with the depreciation of others will rise unimpeded. This is why the Apostles of our faith continually instruct us in the battle against our Tri-Part Enemy, especially the one within our own heart, self. …Again, returning to None But the Hungry that speaks to that below, and is well worth our prayerful consideration.
In the inexorable riches of Christ,
Joe
Neh. 8:10; Isa 30:15; Job 2:10; Jas. 1:2; Prov. 21:30
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1-6. Fulness Of Self
“Cease ye from man, whose breath is in his nostrils: for wherein is he to be accounted of?” (Isa. 2:22). As Christians we are going to be controlled by one of two powers: the self-life, or the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus. The former will make life hell, the latter, heaven. “He who knows that awful power of the self-life within; its enmity with God; its carnality; its grieving and quenching of the Spirit; its deadly blighting of all the blessed fruits of the Spirit; its fierce and desperate resistings of his hunger to enter into the full life of the Spirit, needs no other explanation of the lack of the fulness of the Spirit than the fulness of self.” -J.H. McC.
“Do not seek to shatter the mirror which reflects your soul’s lack of beauty; rather welcome the truth, and believe that next to knowledge of the Lord Jesus nothing is so important as the knowledge of self.” -N.G.
“There is nothing in self worth holding on to; it ought to be handed to the Cross; we have submitted ourselves to such a life as that, and our Father is going to give us every opportunity to allow the Holy Spirit to hold the old nature in the place of death, with the glorious end in view that our Lord Jesus will have the preeminence.” -F.M. “I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth Thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes” (Job 42:5, 6)
