4 Biblical Truths About Building Self-Esteem

There is much to be said in our current culture on building self-esteem, and the importance of having a positive view of oneself. Many Christians visit Biblical counselors when they are plagued with low self-esteem, which may manifest in various negative outcomes – feeling bad about oneself, shyness, depression, and an inability to succeed in areas of life may be some typical complaints.

These feelings can be extremely debilitating, and the good news is that much freedom can be found in God’s Word to overcome the struggle. The hard part may be recognizing that our beliefs about building self-esteem may be all wrong; and that we have inherited some deeply flawed thinking. We need a fresh perspective on what God thinks about our problem, and that starts with looking at some biblical truths on the topic.

4 Biblical Truths about Self-Esteem

1. The Bible is silent on self-esteem

The “self-love doctrine” which has become very popular in the last fifty years professes that “learning to love oneself” is a person’s greatest need. This implies having a positive view of oneself and believing that a person can achieve happiness and whatever they put their mind to if they have good self-esteem.

While the doctrine has very definitely crept into Christian literature, it is striking that Scripture is quite silent on the subject. If building self-esteem is man’s greatest need, why then does no Biblical text encourage Christians to foster feelings of affection towards self?

The idea of how one views oneself is addressed mostly in the Bible in terms of pride and humility. These characteristics may seem far from concepts of self-esteem, self-worth, and self-confidence; but at the heart of the issue is the fact that we did not make ourselves, God did, and so we cannot take any credit for our personality, looks, talents or other accomplishments upon which we base our perceptions of our “adequacy.”

When we feel inadequate, as we all do to some extent as sinners in a broken world, we attempt to make ourselves feel adequate through approval or achievements, which results in feeling proud of ourselves if we are successful, or worthless if not. It also leads to a competitive spirit, constantly comparing ourselves to others to gauge whether we’re “doing okay.”

Humility is not having low self-esteem, but rather an accurate one, seeing ourselves as objects of God’s love regardless of our works, but also as sinners in desperate need of grace. Scripture tells us that “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (James 4:6) so esteem based on what God thinks, rather than what we or others attach value to, is what we need to strive for when building self-esteem.

2. We are all driven by our desires

A person who is working on building self-esteem can be helped by going back to the foundational principle upon which every human being functions: we are driven by our desires. While these desires may differ extensively from one person to the next, each person hopes and yearns – it is the essence of human life and drives all action.

A person’s values can be defined as that which they desire – as the Bible explains in Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” – in other words, what you deem valuable, you will desire. And then, your happiness will vary according to the realization of these desires.

If you look at your values and see that you are living up to them, you will be pleased and over time this will play a big part in building positive self-esteem. It’s clear then that good self-esteem is not a bad thing, but the important thing to consider is what values which you are esteeming.

To value becoming a skilled thief, for example, would be a bad thing, and if you are successful at it you would be a thief with high self-esteem. While this is a basic example, it helps us to examine what we are placing value on and how this feeds our self-image.

In our consumer-driven, looks-conscious culture, we grow up being told by advertising messages what we should strive for and how we and our homes should look. It is little wonder that our society is plagued with low self-esteem. The bar set is set too high, and as reality kicks in we are confronted by our failures on every side.

3. Healthy self-esteem is a secondary goal

As Christians, building self-esteem should never be our primary goal. While it is painful to live with low self-esteem, and it is right to want to solve the problem, the advice offered by popular psychology is likely to only offer a Band-Aid for our issues.

The phrase “love your neighbor as yourself” appears eight times in the Bible, but the focus is entirely on an attitude of serving others. God knows that we love ourselves well; we may feel like we don’t when we struggle with low self-esteem, but a deeper look at our hearts and actions shows that we don’t deprive ourselves of much if we can help it.

While we must value ourselves as children of God, made in His image, we can safely assume that our self-love is tied up in the pursuit of happiness (which every person strives for) and how we feel we measure up to the values we uphold. If we truly value that the good – that is, those things which God says are eternal and carry heavenly reward, not things which “moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal” (Matthew 6:19-24) – then we may legitimately feel good about ourselves based on that assessment.

We may find, however, that as we shift our thinking towards Kingdom-centeredness, a certain self-forgetfulness creeps in. We will be so focused on loving others that any notion of self-esteem diminishes in significance and rises in inverse proportion! Such is the “upside-down” nature of living in God’s kingdom, where what Christians strive to value is completely different from that of the world.

4. Accept God’s love for you

As mentioned above, when building self-esteem and working on re-aligning our values to reflect Christ-centeredness, it is important to start with a deep knowledge that you are loved. Not by your family, spouse, friends, or colleagues (while that may be true), but by your Creator, who knit you together in your mother’s womb and knows every word before it even reaches your tongue (Psalm 139).

While we may know this in theory, it is worth spending time meditating on just how deep this love is – that you are the apple of God’s eye and that if you were the only person on earth, He would have sent His son Jesus to die for you. The Bible says in 1 John 4:10, “this is love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.”

As we truly grasp how much we are loved, by the One who, Himself, is love we will be filled up by this love and it will overflow into our self-esteem and into how we can love others.

It is a relief to think that building self-esteem doesn’t lie in working hard to reach an arbitrary number of self-imposed standards but in resting in God’s love and His perfect plan for our lives. It is also encouraging to know that we can pray for His help in understanding how to feel content in the skin we’re in, and for guidance on how to love Him and His Kingdom more every day, and our own esteem and importance less.