A strong sense of self is one of the most powerful assets in your spiritual life. It can be the deciding factor in whether your spirit is weak or strong. Satan has sown much deception into this area of Christian doctrine. He has convinced Christians that to have a strong sense of self, to have a strong self-image or self-esteem, or to the extent that we have any sense of the self at all, is sinful arrogance, selfishness, and self-centeredness. In the process, he has distorted many scriptures and turned them against believers. Much of Christian teaching pushes you to minimize yourself, to destroy yourself, to lose yourself. This is supposed to be spiritual. This is supposed to be the trademark of discipleship. However, this is in reality the essence of the mystical cults and eastern religions.

Satan has manipulated our theologians to destroy the self in Christians throughout church history, and this has become orthodoxy. The satanic lie is the official doctrine today. It has been a most effective method in keeping believers weak, sick, and fake. It has surely contributed to millions of cases of depression and suicide. It has also contributed to the rejection of the gospel by many people, and thus their eternal perdition. This is what is at stake in the conflict between historic orthodoxy and authentic orthodoxy. Restoring an acute and correct sense of self is one of the strongest and fastest ways to heal the soul and bring spiritual power to a Christian. It also restores the gospel as a message that saves those who believe, instead of a message that destroys them.

 

God and Self

God is SELF in the absolute form. He has the absolute sense of self. So we will begin with him when we rethink the idea of self. God revealed himself to Moses as “I AM WHO I AM.” We ask someone, “Who are you?” The person would reply, “I am John Smith. I am from England, and I am a software programmer.” If the person says, “I am Jane,” we would probably press, “Where are you from? And what do you do?” And she would say, “I am a writer” or “I am a surgeon.” But God replied, “Who am I? I am ME. And ME IS ME. I AM is…I AM. I am that I am. I am what I am. I just…AM!” He told Moses, “Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.”

God introduced himself as ME. He identified himself by himself, and in relation to himself. I AM is I AM. Of course God can be known in his actions and relations, and he often reveals himself through his actions and relations, but his basic identity is I AM. He just IS, and this is meaningful even before we consider his actions and relations. No one else is like this. No creature can possess intrinsic definition and meaning, because the fact that it is a created thing means that it is conceived and defined by the creator, so that it can find meaning only in relation to one who created it. A creature-centered definition of a creature is also a mis-definition of the creature. The definition of the essence of a created thing will always be a creator-centered definition, a God-centered definition. In other words, to truly know a created thing, we must know how it is related to the creator, or God. A self-centered definition of a created thing is different from a God-centered definition of that thing, and on its own this self-centered definition is insufficient and misleading. When a created being insists on defining himself by himself, we call that sin, because by this the created being pretends to be God, and thus blasphemes the true God.

On the other hand, God is eternal and uncreated. He is relative only to himself, and therefore he is absolute. It is necessary that he defines himself by himself, because he is the one that defines everything, and there is nothing other or higher than himself by which he is defined. Therefore, with him God-centeredness and self-centeredness are the same. This is his unique characteristic. A creature who is self-centered in the sense that he considers himself the center of everything, and defines himself and everything else by himself, is out of touch with reality. This is because he is not the center of everything, but he is a creature, and he has definition and meaning only in relation to God. This is why we say that self-centeredness is contrary to God-centeredness, and it comes forth from sin and rebellion, and leads to more sin and rebellion, to error in doctrine, to corruption in society, and so on. However, self-centeredness is not wrong in itself – God is self-centered, and he ought to be self-centered, and for him to be self-centered is to be centered on the divine, on the good, on the worthy, and on the perfect. The issue is not self-centeredness itself, but that no creature should be self-centered in a sense that denies his relation to God.

Self-centeredness, or something related like self-awareness or self-definition, is not the same as selfishness. God is the most self-centered and self-aware person in existence, and it is right that he is, because he is indeed the center of everything, by which everything else is defined and measured. Nevertheless, although he is the most self-centered, the most self-aware, the most self-defined, he is also the least selfish, but rather the most self-sacrificing. God the Son humiliated himself by becoming a man, and divine majesty allowed himself to be nailed to a cross as a human criminal. He did this in order to maintain his own justice as he saved his people. Self-centeredness is not the same thing as selfishness. Even self-centeredness in a relative sense is not sin. We often refer to self-centeredness as if it is sin, because we usually mean a self-centeredness that rejects God as the true center. This would indeed be sin, and we will continue to refer to it as sin. Anything that we have said in other places against self-centeredness in this sense remains true. However, at this time we are discussing the topic of self from an angle unfamiliar to the teachings of human tradition. Here we refer to self-centeredness to mean an acute self-awareness or self-definition, a purposeful deliberation in how we relate to God, to what he says we are, to his commands and promises, and to other people. This kind of self-centeredness is proper and unavoidable. In fact, it is the necessary foundation of holiness.

We are also addressing the ideas of self-image and self-esteem. God knows who he is and defines who he is. He does not need other persons or things to tell him who he is. He does not need to find out about himself by comparing or measuring himself by standards external to himself. He is who he is. He is what he is. He is the highest, the best, the most wise, loving, and powerful. Therefore, he has the highest self-esteem, the highest opinion of himself. He has the highest opinion of himself because he has the correct opinion of himself. Satan has deceived Christians into thinking that it is wrong to think about our self-image or self-esteem as something important, and that it is wrong to have a high self-image or self-esteem. A person must have a self-image or self-esteem, or he would not even be a functioning human. Rather, what is needed is an accurate self-image or self-esteem that is defined by the right standard.

 

Jesus and Self

Jesus had a strong sense of self. He had a clear definition of himself, his identity as God, his identity as man, or the God-man, the Messiah. He had a clear sense of his relation to God the Father, and his mission from God the Father. The Bible says, “The Word was with God, and the Word was God.” And Jesus said that just as God had life in himself, the Son also had life in himself. Jesus knew that he himself was God. He knew that he had self-existing and self-sustaining life. The Bible says, “He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.” He was not a created thing, but any thing that had been created was created through him. And he knew all of this about himself.

He said, “Before Abraham was, I AM.” The Jews understood him correctly, but they did not believe him, and so they tried to stone him for blasphemy. Jesus knew that he was God, and he said that he was God. The people also heard him say that he was God. He had life in himself. As the I AM he could define himself relative to himself. Nevertheless, as the Christ he was also a man, and because of this, we can look to him to show us how to act as a man. He often defined himself relative to the Father God, to his mission, to the plan of salvation, and to his people. Over and over again, he affirmed statements about himself.

He said, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me”; “I and the Father are one”; “He who has seen me has seen the Father”; “I am the resurrection and the life”; “I am the light of the world”; “I am the good shepherd.” And he said many, many other things about himself. For our purpose, it is unnecessary to consider what he said, but the point is that he said many specific things about himself. He was very aware of the self. He thought of his self a lot, and talked about his self a lot. He made big statements about his self. People might say, “But that was Jesus.” Of course he was Jesus, and this is why we must follow his example when it is something that we ought to follow. Jesus or not, it would have been wrong if his statements about himself were false. But he made true statements about himself. You cannot call yourself God, but you are not without properties, or you would not exist at all. What are some true statements about you? You should think about that, and talk about it.

Jesus had an acute awareness and definition of himself, and he repeatedly affirmed his self-image, the image of himself specified by the word of God. But when he talked to God about his mission, he was able to say, “Nevertheless not my will, but yours be done.” So Jesus’ self-centeredness was not the same thing as selfishness or sinfulness. Like God, he was the most self-centered person, but also the most self-sacrificing. He was without sin, but he became sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. He had a strong and accurate self-image, and it was precisely because of this that he could meaningfully say, “Not my will, but yours be done.” If he was nothing more than an empty shell, he would not have been self-sacrificing, because there would be no “him” or self to be counted as self-sacrificing. It was because he had a strong sense of self that he was able to render conscious obedience to the word of God. Self does not prevent love, or worship, or any such thing. Self makes love and worship possible. The problem is with an evil self, or a false definition of the self.

 

Paul and Self

Paul had a strong sense of self. He was God-centered. His entire life was about Jesus Christ. He was obsessed with the gospel. He was driven like a madman to save people by this message. But he talked about himself a lot. He talked about himself non-stop. He made definite and colorful statements about himself. He said he was “a servant of Jesus Christ” and “called to be an apostle” and “set apart for the gospel of God.” Humility is not putting yourself down, or losing your sense of self, but it is defining yourself in relation to Christ. The more you lose your sense of self, the less you can be humble, because there would be no “you” to be humble. He called himself a “preacher” and “teacher.” He said that he possessed a frightening level of authority. He said that he had an abundance of revelations. He said that he was not ashamed of the gospel of Christ. He talked about himself so much that it is difficult to select examples, lest by choosing some we would seem to neglect others.

Read his letters with this in mind, you will see that he constantly expressed an awareness of his self, an opinion on his self, and a self-image and self-esteem about himself so high that it appeared unrealistic for any ordinary human. And he would constantly speak out of his awareness of self, saying things like, “I think this,” “I say this,” “I did this,” “God did this for me,” “This happened to me,” and even “I did this more than they,” and so on. Didn’t Paul also say that he was unworthy to be called an apostle? Right! But he spent more time than anyone else insisting that he was an apostle. He was unworthy in himself, and he knew it. He was an apostle because of the grace of God. He defined his apostleship relative to God’s grace, and not relative to himself or his own merits. It is a common error to read seemingly self-deprecating phrases in the Bible and then assume they represent the whole matter, when these expressions only put down the man in himself, and not the man in Christ.

Religious tradition portrays a strong self-image as an inherent evil, but that has never been the issue. The issue has always been the correct reference point, and the honest grasp of the self relative to that reference point. God said, “I am what I am.” Man was created in the image of God. Like God, man also has a self-image and a self-awareness. It would be unnatural to reject the self and lose the self, to not think about the self, to not talk about the self, or to even destroy and dissolve the self. It would be disastrous, and it is the essence of many false religions. Paul made many grand statements about himself. Like God, he also said, “I am what I am,” but unlike God, he did not claim self-existence and self-sufficiency. Rather, he said, “By the grace of God I am what I am.” God defined himself by himself. Paul defined himself not by himself but by God, or relative to God. So he said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me was not in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me.” Do you see it? Paul’s image of himself was strong, and he even claimed to be better than others in some ways, but this image of himself was intertwined with his image of God.

In another place, he said, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” This is one of the most misused verses in the Bible. It is often given an artificially virtuous and mystical interpretation. Paul did not say, “I was crucified. I no longer exist. There is no Paul. Somebody else is writing this letter.” He obviously did not mean something like this. Christians have so romanticized their distorted interpretation of the Bible’s teaching that throughout church history almost all of them have failed to read this verse in its context. You do not even have to wait. Immediately after Paul said, “It is no longer I who live,” he said, “The life I now live.” Clearly, he continued to live. His self persisted, and he was aware of this self. Thus some translations say, “My old self has been crucified” – the context shows that he meant something like this. The previous verse says, “For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God.” He did not mean a destruction of the self, or a destruction of the sense of self or the concern for the self. He meant that his self was transformed. His relationships to the world, to the law, and to God were changed. He did not “deny” his self and continued to live in misery forever, or obliterated the self into nothingness. If anything, his sense of self became much sharper.

Paul denied himself, in that his old self, the self that defined everything by the self, was a failure and was crucified with Christ. Paul continued to be Paul. He rejected the no-Christ self, and now lived the in-Christ self. That’s all he meant by it. It was still the “I” who lived, but not like before. The “I” who lived according to the self, the self who pretended to be God, was the one that died. What did he say about his new situation? “It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.” He did not say, “I no longer live, but Christ lives.” No, he said Christ lived “in me.” Paul was still there. He did not say, “Christ lives in this body by himself — there is only Christ in this body. There is no longer a person called Paul.” If that were the case, then we cannot say that Paul was saved, but that he was destroyed. He did not say that Christ lived in his body by himself, but he said, “And the life I now live in the flesh” — I live! — “I live by faith in the Son of God.” Religious tradition has romanticized and mysticized a simple idea. Christ did not live there by himself, but Paul lived by Christ. Paul was still Paul, but he had been born again. He had reoriented his whole existence upon Jesus Christ. Now his self came into sharper focus, with a more accurate definition. He became even bolder about his identity and purpose than when he was an unbeliever. All of this was centered on Christ.

 

Self-Actualization

This is one way to verbalize the Christian teaching and experience. The traditional teaching that destroys the self also destroys this reality in Christ. The result is that this person does not live for Christ, because there is no longer a “self” to consciously do it. The irony is that this same teaching makes a person insist with much self-righteousness and indignation that he is living for Christ, precisely because he thinks he has done something destructive to his self. He becomes arrogant about his false humility. If you question him, he would fight you about it. He would fight everybody who disagrees with his teaching. With a forlorn expression and poetic language, he claims to be “broken” for Christ. If he is so broken, why is he still there bragging about it? If he is so broken, we would not even know about it. We would not think about how broken he is, since we would not think about him at all. If he is so broken, why is he working so hard to remind us about himself, about how broken he is? According to him, shouldn’t we only see Christ without him trying to convince us about how broken he is? It is all fake. What you see is heightened religious arrogance born from spiritual defeat and self-pity.

Again, the irony is that this shows that his self very much continues to exist, perhaps even his old sinful and unsaved self. I am not talking about selfishness, but self-awareness and self-definition. This is indeed self-centeredness, but not in the absolute sense. The absolute self-centeredness is the thing that brought down Adam and Eve. They tried to be like God in an absolute sense, in a sense that did away with God. Only God can say, “I AM what I AM.” This is an absolute self-centeredness, a self-centeredness that has the self as its own standard and reference. But the self-centeredness that is renewed in the image of Christ says, “I AM what I AM, by the grace of God.” It is a relative self-centeredness that looks to God as its standard and reference. This is when the Christian “finds” himself. This is when the Christian achieves the all-elusive “self-actualization” that the psychologists seek in vain. Why do they seek in vain? Because they seek an absolute self-actualization. They seek only what God possesses. On the other hand, when a person achieves this correct form of self-actualization – a self-actualization relative to God in Christ – his entire outlook and psyche become strong and healthy. He becomes efficient, focused, and full of power.

Someone who has sinned must indeed come to God with a broken spirit and contrite heart, but Satan has distorted these expressions and inspired Christians to mandate a state of continuous internal disrepair. Thus the person remains in spiritual uselessness, and self-pity and agony. When a person approaches God in sincere humility, God forgives him and restores him to confidence in Christ. If there is no restoration and no confidence, we can only assume that there has never been any contrition or repentance. And this is the truth. The teaching of spiritual brokenness is used not to lead sinners to righteousness, not to lead the proud to humility, but to allow hypocrites to appear righteous, and to allow the arrogant to appear humble, and the unrepentant, the unsaved, and the hard-hearted to appear spiritual, even the light of the world and the leaders of men. It is religious showmanship. If they had been broken and contrite, God would have healed them, so that they would now bring healing to others. They would do it with confidence and cheerfulness, because God had healed their hearts. There is no salvation in a religion that sees brokenness and contrition as inherently meritorious and as an end in itself, or as a continuous state of spirituality or holiness. A religion remains in this state because there is no God and no grace in it, no Christ and no salvation in it.

The traditional man-made version of Christianity has missed this simple distinction, that the self is a valid concern as long as it is not made absolute but finds the right reference point in Christ. And because it has missed this distinction, it has produced centuries of feeble, depressed, and hypocritical people. As much as they have tried to suppress and even destroy the self, it is still there, for if one truly succeeds in destroying it, there would be no more self to attack the self. It will always be there, but if you do not know what to do with it, or if you only torture it, then it is left without power and purpose. But still, it is there, struggling and miserable. This has become the norm in Christian living for all these centuries, so much so that it is regarded as evidence of piety and humility. You are created in the image of God. You have inherited the instinct to say “I AM.” But you are not God. You would be wrecked if you declare a simple “I AM” as God does. You would end up corrupt and miserable. This is the self that is in sin. This is the kind of self that must die. But God has raised you up in Christ, so that now you can say, “I AM the righteousness of God, in Christ. I am whole. I am justified. I am sanctified. I am a winner. I have purpose.” This is where true happiness begins.

Paul said to the Corinthians, “Imitate me, as I imitate Christ.” Why wasn’t he embarrassed to say this? You might say, “He was an apostle.” Sure, he was an apostle, but wasn’t he still a man? Indeed he was inspired to write Scripture, but he did not replace the Scripture. And he did not write Scripture to call people to have faith in himself for salvation. When he preached as an apostle, he did not preach that he died and rose again for the people, but he said that Christ did these things, and told the people to trust Christ for salvation. Yet when he talked about walking with Christ, he did not hesitate to tell others to imitate him. It was crucial that he added, “as I imitate Christ.” His sense of self was centered on Christ. That was the foundation of his confidence, even his self-confidence. The foundation was not apostleship, but Christ. He instructed other people to think similarly. He said to Timothy, “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young.” Why didn’t he say, “Don’t let anyone look down on Christ”? Why did it matter what Timothy thought about himself before the people? It was important that he thought, “I can do this work of the gospel, and I can take authority in this situation. I am not going to let you look down on me because I am young.” I. I. I. Me. Me. Me. Why would Paul say it like this? Paul did not want Timothy to be “broken” in front of the people, but confident, and defiant in the face of contempt and resistance. All this makes sense in the light of what we have been explaining. Christians have twisted the Bible’s teaching that we ought to “deny” ourselves, when we ought to deny the old self, but embrace fully the new self that has been made in the image of Christ.

God changes people’s perception about themselves. He never says, “Just don’t think about yourself.” He insists that people should follow his example and think about themselves, but that they should do it correctly. They ought to think about themselves in relation to him. One of the most destructive false teachings in church history is that God wants people to think worse about themselves. This is a gross distortion of the Bible’s records about his interaction with human beings. Rather, God calls people to think truly about themselves, and that begins when they learn to think about themselves in relation to him — his foreordination and his salvation in Christ. God makes people think worse about themselves when they are outside of him, but he makes people think better about themselves in him. God changes how we think about ourselves. And when we relate to him through faith in Jesus Christ, this change is always positive.

This is the answer that the psychologists have failed to find. People seem to be happier and perform better when they have a positive self-esteem, but the psychologists have no basis to urge people to think better about themselves, and so this strong self-esteem is generated by sheer force or delusion due to expedience and then placed in midair. The result is a warped sense of self, narcissism, unhappiness, and then eternal destruction. The church reacts to this theory of the self by applying their own long-held false doctrine on the self, which amounts to saying that people ought to have either no self-esteem or low self-esteem. This is supposed to be biblical. This is supposed to be humility. The truth is that this is a doctrine of demons to keep God’s people weak, arrogant, and hypocritical, and to reject their place in Jesus Christ.

 

Self-Image

When God reveals himself to a person, he would contradict that person’s pessimistic view of himself. The person’s view of himself might be realistic up to that point, but when God establishes a relationship with you, he changes you, and your low self-image is no longer accurate. While Gideon was hiding from the enemies, an angel appeared and said, “The LORD is with you, O mighty man of valor.” Mary was greeted with the words, “O favored one, the Lord is with you!” And she learned to say, “From now on all generations will call me blessed.” Narcissism? Arrogance? No. She was blessed because of her relation to God, and when her relation to God was revealed to her, it was then that she saw herself as God saw her.

Abram said to God, “You have given me no offspring, so a member of my household will be my heir.” But God answered, “This man will not be your heir. Your very own son will be your heir.” Then God told him to look at the sky and count the stars, and said in effect, “You have no offspring? You will not only have your own son as heir, but you will have many descendants. Your legacy will never end, and you will never be forgotten.” He was still childless when he was ninety-nine years old. God appeared to him again and said to him, “I am God Almighty. Walk before me, and be blameless.” We walk in relation to God. We walk with God. Then God said, “You will no longer be called Abram, but you name shall be Abraham, for I have made you a father of many nations.” He did not have even one child, but God told him to call himself father of nations. “Don’t see yourself as childless. See yourself as father. Call yourself father of nations.”

God said to Jeremiah, “I chose you before I formed you in the womb. I set you apart before you were born. I appointed you a prophet to the nations.” He wanted the man to think this about himself: “I am a chosen one. I am a consecrated one. I am an appointed one.” There was no way for him to think only about God or to avoid thinking about himself, because although God was speaking, God was saying something about the man. Unless we disregard the word of God, we cannot avoid thinking about the man, but to disregard the word of God is the opposite of being God-centered. If we are God-centered, we will think a lot about what he said about the man. So to be God-centered is not to think about God and nothing else, but to pay attention to what God says about himself and everything else. But Jeremiah answered, “God, I cannot speak, because I am too young.” He did not say that God could not speak, or that God was too young. He said that he himself could not speak, that he himself was too young. He had a low self-image. Can you see it? What he said had nothing to do with God or what God said. This weak self-esteem was in fact man-centered and self-centered, that is, in the absolute sense that defined the self by the self, and not by the word of God. Moses was indeed a broken man after tending sheep for forty years in the desert, but when he insisted that he did not possess the eloquence or charisma to speak, God did not praise him for his humility, but God became angry. According to the man-made standard of piety, Jeremiah offered a humble reply, but notice that it made him defy what God said to him, as if the divine declaration “I chose! I consecrated! I appointed!” did not matter. His low self-esteem hindered obedience and ministry. Consider Isaiah. He cried, “Woe is me!” He regarded himself as unclean. But when God told him that he had been cleansed and his iniquity taken away, Isaiah said, “Here am I. Send me.”

When God establishes a relation of faith with a person, he contradicts that person’s weak self-esteem, because this very relation of faith inevitably transforms the person into something superior. So God said, “Do not say that you are too young. To whomever I tell you to go, you will go, and whatever I tell you to say, you will say. Do not be afraid of people, for I am with you to rescue you.” God did not want Jeremiah to say that he was too young, but rather to act on the word. And God did not want Jeremiah to be afraid of people, but rather to believe that he was someone who had God’s protection. God did not say, “Do not say that you are too young, because you are super smart.” But he said, “Because I have commanded you. Because I will deliver you.” Jeremiah was acting under divine authority. Human limitations no longer mattered. God-centered thinking does not destroy or lower the self-image, but in a relation of faith, it produces a high self-image. His weak self-image was in fact self-centered, focused on his own youth, inexperience, and such things. He defined his identity and ability by himself. God wanted him to define his identity relative to God, as one who was chosen, consecrated, and appointed. And God wanted him to define his ability relative to God, as one who was delegated to go, commanded to speak, and protected by deity. God did not want Jeremiah to stop thinking about himself. If Jeremiah were to be faithful in his mission, he would have to think a lot about himself, about what God said concerning his identity and mission.

You say, “But that was something God did for Abraham, wasn’t it? Isaac came by a miracle. Abraham produced Ishmael with a woman who was not barren, and God rejected the child. So God told Abraham that he would become the father of nations, but God was the one who made it happen.” Precisely! This fits in with what we have been saying. Our self-image is wrong if we define ourselves by ourselves, or in relation to ourselves or something other than God. On the other hand, we have a correct self-image when it is defined by a correct God-image. We see ourselves correctly, when we see ourselves in God. Our self-image is not only about ourselves, but about what we are in relation to God, or in Christ. And when we see ourselves in Christ, we cannot have a low self-image, because that would mean that we must have a low God-image. A person who claims to know God but who has a low self-image either has a low image of God or the truth is that he has no relation to God. This is how Satan has deceived people. He wants people to experience no difference and no benefit even if they have come to know God through Jesus Christ.

Although God was the one who performed his promise to Abraham, he still wanted Abraham to see himself as more than a barren man with no heir. It would be a denial of the divine promise if the divine promise does not change how we see ourselves. If God promises you something, then you should see yourself as someone who possesses that something, otherwise, it would be a denial of the promise. Abraham became a father of nations because of God, but God himself was not the father of nations. God said the man Abraham was. Jeremiah was a prophet because of God, but God himself was not the prophet. The man Jeremiah was. And God told Jeremiah to see himself as one who was ordained to speak for God. He was not too young. He was not disqualified, but he had received the authority and inspiration from God to speak. To see himself as something different or less than this would have been a rejection of God’s command.

 

Self-Esteem

Our self-image should be more than merely positive. A Christian should have a superhuman level of self-esteem that steps far beyond what is represented by the self-delusion and arrogance of man. We can have a supernatural self-image. A positive self-image that is based on self-determination and wishful thinking will come to nothing, and end in disappointment. But the Christian’s super self-image is based on divine promise and power. He is able to move forward in life with confidence. If a man defines himself by himself, his self-image would still be limited by what he believes about human potential, and any presumption will soon end in failure. As great as he thinks he is, he cannot think that he can heal the sick and cast out demons. But the Christian believes that he can do these things, and then he makes them happen by the name of Jesus Christ. Is it any wonder that this super self-image poses a threat to Satan, so that he would do all that he can to deceive God’s people, and to make them reject this? He has succeeded in making the church teach the opposite.

We can multiply examples on how God changed people’s self-image and self-esteem once he established a relation of faith with them. Now that your thinking has been opened, you will see that this happened with almost every person that God dealt with in the Bible. I want to point out something else important. God not only changes how we see ourselves, but he also changes how we see other people. Abraham saw himself as old and childless. When God appeared to him, he changed what Abraham thought about himself. Now he saw himself as healthy and vigorous, and the father of entire nations. But Sarah was also old and barren. God’s promise to Abraham demanded that he change how he looked at his wife as well. She was not too old, because God would work a miracle. She would not be barren, because God would fulfill his word and she would become pregnant. She would become the mother of nations. Thus God’s word enables us to look at other people — those who have a relation of faith with him — with a supernatural optimism. We see ourselves as forgiven, liberated, healed, called, and empowered to a superhuman degree. And we also see others who have faith in Christ this way — they are forgiven, liberated, healed, called, and empowered. Even if a person is broken and uneducated, if he has faith in Jesus Christ, we see him as valuable, useful, even as a preacher and a miracle worker. If a person is sick, we see him as healed. If he is poor, we see him as rich. When I see someone who is depressed, I see someone who can be happy. When I see someone bound by alcoholism, I see someone who can be free and useful. He is not limited by human potential. We see God’s potential working in him.

On the other hand, if a person is not related to God by faith, then we have no basis to think well of him. If we force ourselves to have a high view of him, this opinion still could not reach beyond inherent human limitations. We still would not think of him as a miracle worker, who has the potential to heal the sick and walk on water. Nevertheless, because of our faith in God, we see someone who might turn to Christ and become transformed and enhanced in every way. When you have a man-centered outlook, you will not only look down on yourself, but you will also look down on other people, neglecting their possibilities in God. Jesus said that anyone who believes in him can do the same works that he did and even greater works. So when I look at someone who has faith in Jesus, I see a person who can heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead. This is not something that one person would usually think about another person, and even the most delusional non-Christian would not possess such a high opinion of himself or of his fellows. But this is what we can think, and what we ought to think, when we see someone who believes in Jesus Christ. Christians almost never think this way about other Christians, because their view of themselves and others are man-centered in the absolute sense, just like how the non-Christians look at themselves and others. They measure themselves by themselves, and they think that to be God-centered is to put down themselves or to refuse to think about themselves. To be God-centered does not mean we compare ourselves to God, and then put down ourselves because we have lost! Religious traditions that boast of their “God-centered” theology commit this very error. It is essentially man-centered thinking. Rather, to be God-centered means that we think about ourselves in the light of our relation to God. And if our relation to him is one of faith, then his word declares wonderful things about us.

God’s word corrects our self-image, and builds our self-esteem on Jesus Christ. God declared, “I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” This is the basis for Christian self-identity. He is our God, we are his people. No matter what we are facing, and no matter what topic we are thinking about, we will never deviate from this, or follow a path that is inconsistent with this. He belongs to us, and we belong to him. As Paul said, nothing can separate us from the love of God. Jesus built a strong sense of self into his disciples, and he used himself as the foundation for their self-image. He did this to individuals. When Peter confessed him as the Christ, he answered, “You are Peter. On this rock I will build my church.” He wanted Peter to have an identity, to know himself: “You are Peter.” Later Peter would write that all believers are as “living stones” that come together to become the church of Jesus Christ. Peter also wanted us to know who we are in Christ. Jesus also did this to groups. When he sent out the twelve apostles, he said to them, “Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, and cast out demons.” Of course they would do it by the power of God, but he did not say, “God will heal the sick, God will raise the dead,” but he said, “You will do these things.” Later he addressed a much larger group of disciples and made even stronger promises than he gave the apostles: “Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall hurt you.” He did not say, “God has authority over all the power of the enemy, and nothing can hurt him,” but he said, “Nothing will hurt you.” He wanted his followers to have confidence about themselves, but this confidence is founded on his authority. This is true God-centered thinking.

 

Self-Confidence

Jesus said all kinds of things that enable his followers to build confidence about themselves – not confidence in themselves, but confidence about themselves, in him. If we are God-centered, then we will believe what he says about us even when what we see and what we feel seem different, and when we have this faith, reality itself will change to conform to the word of God about us. He said, “Have faith in God. For truly I say to you, if anyone tells this mountain to move into the sea, and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will happen, he will have whatever he says.” Once you have entered into this faith relation with God, you can command a mountain to move, and it would obey you. He said you can do it, so obviously he wants you to think that you can do it. Jesus said that the Christian’s faith is “in God,” but in the context of this faith, when the Christian commands the mountain to move, he believes “what he says will happen” – not what God says, but what the man himself says. And he will have whatever he – the man – says. This is in direct contradiction to all of Christian orthodoxy and so-called “God-centered” theology. This is because historic orthodoxy has betrayed the word of God for just that long. It has never been God-centered, but throughout history it has made the claim with such blatant self-righteousness that it managed to convince people that it was truly God-centered.

In the context of faith “in God” – this is essential, of course – Jesus said that his follower can have faith in himself, so much so that he believes his own command for a miracle would happen. He can believe in his own words, even when these words demand a miracle for them to be fulfilled. Gabriel assured Mary, “For nothing is impossible with God.” And Jesus said, “What is impossible with man is possible with God.” Christians magnify the omnipotence of God, as they should. They write books about it. They sing about it. They debate unbelievers about it. But then things become awkward when Jesus added, “All things are possible to him who believes.” Ah…all the things we said about God’s omnipotence suddenly apply to the Christian, to anyone who has faith. With one word, Jesus elevated human possibilities all the way to omnipotence. What?! And he kept teaching it: “For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” He did not say, “Nothing will be impossible for God.” We already know that. But he said, “If you have faith…nothing will be impossible for you.” Nothing will be impossible for the man who has faith. Did he mean that we can achieve difficult things by our effort and determination, by much ingenuity and persistence? Is this like how people say, if you believe in yourself, you can climb Mount Everest or become the CEO? Did he mean that kind of lame natural “faith”? But it involves no effort. This is the kind of faith that achieves far beyond the possibilities of natural human potential, since he referred to moving a physical mountain by merely speaking to it, and in context, also to casting out demons and healing the sick. He referred to a spectacular supernatural occurrence, and it is accomplished by speaking, not by intense labor and design, and without any hardship. Under God, a man wields omnipotence by speaking in faith. He applied omnipotence to man, referring to a man who has faith with the same expressions used when referring to God.

Why did Jesus say it like this? Why did he want a man who follows him to possess this sense of control? Why did he want a woman to feel this way about herself? We can say a lot about this, but our topic is the self. You see, the minimization or destruction of the self makes the spirit sick. The self is still there, but when a person pretends that the self is not there, it does not make it holy and healthy, but twisted and grotesque. As the Scripture says, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out, till he leads justice to victory. In his name the nations will put their hope.” He did not come to break man. He came to heal man. Jesus did not only come to restore our image of God, but also the image of man. And under God, when man is related to God in faith, this is the potential of man. This is what God wants you to think about yourself, but not until you believe. Christians have historically robbed humanity of this. Under Satan, they have worked to steal, kill, and destroy, when Jesus wanted to offer man an abundant life. They have labored against the doctrine of Christ to destroy the self of man, rather than to restore it by placing it in proper relation to God. Let us destroy this kind of demonic theology that poisons humanity.

Jesus said that anyone who has faith in him can do the same works that he did, and even greater works. He preached the gospel, confronted religious leaders and unbelievers, healed the sick, cast out demons, opened blind eyes, walked on water, multiplied food, and raised the dead. He saw visions and uttered prophecies. He spoke to God, and God answered from heaven with a voice of thunder. If we were to do these things, we would only be doing the same works that he did, but he said we would do even greater things, not greater only in terms of quantity, but greater mainly in terms of degree of power. We would not be able to do these things without God, but that is not an issue, because we are not without God. When we think about ourselves, we do not think that we are sinners and losers, but winners, ambassadors, and miracle workers. God wants us to think of ourselves this way.

Jesus also said, “If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, then you will ask what you wish, and it will be done for you.” He said, “Apart from me you can do nothing.” Religious tradition wants us to think that he said, “You can do nothing.” But he said, “Apart from me” you can do nothing. And he said, “If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit.” Faith in Christ is essential. We do not think of ourselves apart from him. Yet he did not say, “God will bear much fruit. God will get what he wishes.” But he said, “You will bear much fruit” and “You will get what you wish.” He was careful to emphasize the human self as it relates to God. Why? Man is made in the image of God, in the image of the “I AM,” and if the self is suppressed, it will wither. It will not become selfless and holy, but it will become grotesque, and very perverted. This is what we see in most religious disciples, who follow the traditions of men rather than the teachings of Christ. For this reason, Christians are often very creepy and repulsive. They were broken people in the first place, and then church teachings wrecked them even more. Mangled by man-made orthodoxy. Disfigured by satanic teachings such as cessationism and other doctrines of unbelief. They do not practice denial of the self, but they maintain the self in denial. They are unhappy and disgusting people, and they want to drag you down with them. And they call that evangelism. Of course, not all Christians are like this, because a few of them indeed have faith. They are beautiful, pleasant, and vibrant people. They exude the optimism of faith in God. We see the possibilities of omnipotence in them. Our aim is to awaken people to the truth, so that more people can become like this. As long as a person exists, the self will be there. And so his denial of the self results in self-righteousness, as well as other demonic characteristics. Then as Ishmael harassed Isaac, he will persecute those who have discovered themselves in Christ, and who have become confident and comfortable in him.

He said, “If you remain in me, and my words remain in you, then you will ask for whatever you wish.” You. You will ask for what you wish. You will demand your will. To follow this teaching, you must think about yourself. If you do not think about yourself, then his words — the words in this verse — are not remaining in you. If the words of this verse remain in you, then you will think about yourself. You will think of yourself as someone who can ask for whatever you want, and then get whatever you want. You will think of yourself as one who can ask for your will in him, and then your will shall be done. If you do not think this way, then you have not connected with the verse. This is not a self-confidence that forgets God or that enthrones the self. It is a God-confidence that is applied to the self, or a self-confidence that is derived from God. It is a confidence that is infused and sustained and empowered by the words of Christ. If you do not think of yourself this way — if you do not think that you can ask for your will to be done as a branch demands whatever it wants from the vine — then it must mean that you are not remaining in him, or his words are not remaining in you. He said that if you remain in him, you can ask for whatever you will, but apart from him, you can do nothing. So if you think that you cannot ask for whatever you will, or if you think that you can do nothing, it must mean that you do not remain in him, and you live apart from him. You admit that you are without Christ.

 

Self-Love

God-centered doctrine does not annihilate the self, but it restores the self to the proper place in relation to God. Passages in the Bible that human tradition uses to condemn self-love have been distorted. For example, Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Didn’t he say that we must deny the self? No, keep reading. He did not say what man-made piety claims that he said. He continued, “For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Right after he said to “deny himself” he said “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Jesus wants you to save your life and find your life. Thus he cannot mean that one must deny the self in the absolute sense, or in the sense taught by religious tradition through the centuries. And he continued, “For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?” He was emphatic about saving the self, in the sense of one’s soul. To state this in the terms of our context, “You must stop defining the self by the self, living the self by following the self. You must define the self by Christ, living the self by following Christ.”

In another place, Jesus said that if a man does not hate his family members and his own life also, then “he cannot be my disciple.” Man-made orthodoxy has construed this to mean that a person must continuously detest himself in order to be a disciple. However, Jesus was referring to someone who would come to him to become his disciple. You are supposed to hate your old life, which you leave behind so that you can follow Jesus. This is the same teaching discussed above. He did not say that you must deny yourself and follow him, and then continue to deny yourself. He did not say that you must reject your non-Christian life, become a Christian, and then reject your Christian life! This is the level of utter stupidity promoted by historic orthodoxy on the doctrines of discipleship and sanctification. Jesus said that you deny yourself, so that you may save yourself. That is the reason to deny yourself in the first place – to save yourself. You are not supposed to deny the self that has been saved. Or do you think that you are supposed to hate your new family members too – that is, your brothers and sisters in Christ? If you hate your new life and your new friends, then you are still an unbeliever, and you have never started to follow Christ.

You are supposed to hate your old life, or your life as a non-Christian, so that you may leave that behind and follow Jesus. But then you are supposed to love your life from that point forward. You are not supposed to hate your life with Jesus! You are supposed to hate your life with Satan, but love your new life with Christ. If you continue to hate your life after you have started to follow Jesus, this can only mean that you hate Jesus too. This is what Satan wants people to do, and this is what orthodox religious people have promoted through the centuries – to hate Jesus. But they can all go to hell if they hate themselves so much, if they even hate themselves in Christ. If they hate themselves in Christ, are they in Christ at all? Either they have never been saved, or they lie about hating themselves, but they say what they think they are supposed to say, or what they have been taught to say under the threat of a fraudulent orthodoxy. I love myself in Christ. I am a new creation, born again as God’s masterpiece. I love what God has done in me, and what he is doing through me. I love my new life in Christ. I love my in-Christ “self.” God said he will perfect me in spirit, soul, and body. I believe it. I love it. I do not deny any of it. If you disagree, then you are not a follower of Christ and you hate him, and you can just go to hell.

Jesus said, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” He did not say, “Love your neighbor instead of yourself.” Religious people often blast the non-Christians for saying, “Love yourself,” as if this is the antithesis of the teachings of Christ. Indeed, non-Christians are wrong in everything that they say about love, but the Christians are no better, only more confusing and hypocritical. Neither really agrees with Jesus. It is impossible to obey this commandment of love toward others without a strong sense of self and strong love for self. If you hate yourself, then to love others as yourself would be to hate others. And Paul said, “He who loves his wife loves himself.” So how can you love your wife if you hate yourself? Like the mindless self-deprecation practiced by Christians, self-loathing is also a cheap counterfeit spirituality embraced either by those who have been taught false doctrine or those who detest themselves because they have never been born again by the love of God. How can you hate the work of God in you, unless God has not done any work in you? How can you hate the new creation, the new race of humanity that God foreordained to inherit eternity? I love it. I am a part of it, and I love every bit of it.

 

Superhuman

Paul also directed believers to define themselves by their faith in Christ. This transformed and enhanced their image of the self to a superhuman level. The Christian who defines himself by who he is and what he has because of his faith will see himself as something more than what is considered inherently human. You are no longer only human when your entire being has been infused with the Spirit of Deity. The non-Christian may have a positive image of himself, but because he is a child of the devil, an enemy of God, and because he is broken by sin, this positive image is delusional. But the Christian has Jesus Christ as the basis for a positive image of himself. He is superior not because he is inherently superior, and not because of his own talents, good works, and such things, but because God has made him superior by grace, as a gift. Now the Christian can see himself in Christ, and the Bible teaches that God has predestined the believer to conform to the image of Christ. Thus his self-image moves beyond even that which is delusional to that which is supernatural, but this supernatural image is realistic and centered on the word of God. It is even more extreme than delusion, or the wishful thinking and imagination of man, but it is a reality in the one who believes.

He told Timothy to remember who he was because of his faith. He wrote, “Continue in what you have learned and have believed, knowing from whom you have learned it, and how since childhood you have known the scriptures, which have given you wisdom to receive salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Remember who you are. Who are you? You are one who has learned from reliable sources, and you have believed the truth. You are one who has learned the scriptures since childhood, and the scriptures have given you the wisdom for salvation by faith in Christ. This is who you are. He also wrote, “This charge I give you in accordance with the prophecies spoken about you, so that by them you might fight a good fight.” And he wrote, “Do not neglect the gift that you have, which was given to you by prophecy when the elders laid their hands on you.” Then he wrote, “I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you by the laying on of my hands, for God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control.” He did not tell Timothy, “Just forget yourself. Just destroy yourself. Just deny yourself.” He built up Timothy’s self, but he built it on the revelations and operations of the Spirit, and not on Timothy’s human potential.

The reason that this kind of teaching is absent from Christian theology is not because it is some hidden teaching – now you can see it clearly. It is because most believers and theologians are out of touch with Christ and lack the operations of the Spirit, and they wish to justify their shortcoming. They want everybody to be deficient like they are, and they are afraid that anyone would believe the word of God and become better. They want to be recognized as experts and leaders, when they are not even worthy to be the doormats of those who have faith. Their “God-centered” theology is in reality the bastard child of unbelief and selfishness. Do not let the label fool you! If they do not accept the good things that God says about the self of man in Christ, then their theology is man-centered, unbelief-centered, demon-centered, and never God-centered. Use every channel you have to expose this scam, so that all the world will know to laugh at them, and their lack of faith and power. Then their false doctrines and creeds will no longer remain things to be studied and admired, and the church and humanity will return to the teachings of Christ, whose yoke is easy, and whose burden is light. Ishmael would always try to bully Isaac. But the inheritance belongs to the son of divine promise and miracle power, not the son of human effort and design.

Paul also addressed groups in the same way, building them up in Christ. He said that believers have been made “the righteousness of God in him.” If you believe in Jesus Christ, then you no longer need to be ashamed or timid before the presence of God. You are righteous. You are more righteous than the unbelievers. You are more righteous than the most righteous person in human history. You are more righteous than what is humanly possible. Your righteousness exceeds human limitations. And it is because you are GOD-centered that you are able to think this way about your SELF. This is because your righteousness comes from God. It is God’s own righteousness imputed to you in Christ. When you consider how righteous you are, you do not measure your self by your self. Even if you are delusional, your opinion can go only so far. But when you consider how righteous you are, you do not use your self as a reference, but you define how righteous you are by looking to how righteous God is. His righteousness is absolute, perfect, and superhuman. It is not only greater than human limitations, but greater than human imaginations. God’s reality is greater than man’s delusion. And this reality is our reality. This is how righteous you are, and God wants you to think this way about yourself. There is no place to boast, because this absolute righteousness comes from God as a gift. As the Bible says, “Let him who boasts, boast about the Lord.”

When you feel so “right,” nothing can stand in your way. When you are so “right,” you cannot conceive of any reason why God would not answer your prayers for success and miracles. You cannot conceive of any reason why a sickness or demon would not depart when you command it to go. You have the “right-ness” of God. This is how God feels about himself, and he wants to share this feeling with you, through Jesus Christ. This is the power of the righteousness of God. It has been untapped for almost two thousand years. As much as the Reformation harped about justification by faith, it had no idea what it is. It did not get anywhere close to what the righteousness of God could mean to Christians, and to the world. God’s righteousness is a thing of horror to Satan, but he is not nervous when it remains only a formal principle in Christian theology, rather than a vital power and a superhuman righteous feeling and confidence in every single believer. The prayer of a righteous man is effective indeed, but it is futile if no one actually feels righteous, or if this righteousness is only a theological principle and not a supernatural reality in man. What do we have in Christ? What Satan says about me is irrelevant, because I am God-centered, and I think about how righteous God is in me. This is the only basis on which I live. When Satan pokes at me with his little wrinkly finger, I slam his head off with the fist of God. Then I clobber his face into the ground over and over again like a madman until he is only a puddle of goo. This is the righteousness that we have in Christ Jesus.

Paul used the facts about how excellent and superior Christians are as a basis for exhortation toward holiness. He said, “Don’t you know that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit?” Our self-image, self-esteem, self-identity, self-definition, our sense of self, or whatever term we wish to use, is characterized by the knowledge that we are God’s temple, housing the Holy Spirit. If you despise God’s temple, then you despise God. But if you esteem God’s temple, then you must admit that this doctrine builds your self-esteem, because it says that you are that temple. Human religion has been so successful that Christians are afraid to have a high self-esteem, but self-esteem is not an evil concept, and a high self-esteem is not in itself an evil thing. The pivotal issue is the basis of the self-esteem. If it is based on man’s wishful thinking, or arrogance, or false philosophy, then it is evil. If the human self refers to itself to define itself, then it is evil. But if the human self refers to the gospel to define itself, and if it is based on the gift of God in Christ, and since all the credit returns to God, then it is good, admirable, and necessary.

Paul also said, “Don’t you know that we shall judge angels?” He said this to direct the believers to settle disputes between themselves instead of bringing them before unbelievers, bringing shame to the name of Christ. Thus we are to think that we are those who shall judge even angels. Building up the image of ourselves by the facts of the gospel enables us to achieve self-aware and deliberate holiness, and mature character. Man-made doctrines and traditions that command us to denigrate the self and even dissolve the self cannot lead to holiness. It makes the thing that it claims to produce impossible. The Bible teaches that Christ was raised from the dead and then seated at the right hand of God. But Paul said that we have been seated together with him. We are seated at the right hand of God. If all things are under his feet, then all things are under our feet. If anyone denies this, it means that either he thinks Christ is not seated at the right hand of God so that all things are not under his feet, or he admits that he is not a follower of Christ so that he is not seated with him in the heavenly places. Either one would make this man a non-Christian, headed toward hellfire. He has no right to teach us theology. Let us violently shove useless babblers such as this to the side of the road and move forward. The Bible teaches that Christ has been made the heir of God, who would inherit all things. But Paul said that we are co-heirs with Christ. Therefore, we shall inherit all things. Paul said so many other things to build up the Christian self that we cannot list them all, for to attempt this would be to reproduce almost all his writings. When we keep this in mind and read his letters again, we see it everywhere.

 

Masterpiece

For all the talk about selflessness and humility, the Bible places a curiously strong emphasis on how great we are. It could very well talk about how great Christ is without any mention of what this means to us, but it keeps talking about how great we are because of him. This would be strange if the traditional perspective is correct, but the traditional perspective is a scam. Man-made theology purports to be God-centered, so it keeps talking about how great God is and how sinful and defeated we are, whether or not we are talking about ourselves in relation to him. This kind of piety disregards or even condemns what God has done for us by Jesus Christ. Thus it is in reality a thoroughly man-centered theology, because it thinks about who man is in himself, or who man is without any regard for God or Jesus Christ. God-centered theology portrays God as great, even the only good, but by Jesus Christ he has also made us great. We are strong, and victorious, even superhuman in Christ. We are more than overcomers because of him. We are great not because of ourselves, or the world, or our wealth, or our education, or our race, or country, or status. We are great because of him. And in this, God is glorified. As the Bible says, “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.” Another translation says, “For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.” I am God’s masterpiece. He created me in Christ Jesus, in the pattern of the Son of God. You are God’s masterpiece. You have a destiny in Christ Jesus, foreordained by God.

From this perspective, we ought to proclaim the slogan that counterfeit God-centered theology hates so much: “God has a wonderful plan for your life.” Of course many people do not dare to say this. They do not have any faith in God, and their lives will likely end in failure and disaster, peppered throughout with sicknesses and tragedies, and they will blame it all on God’s sovereignty. Refusing to take responsibility, they will shove the whole mess into his lap, and call that God-centered theology. It is the height of wickedness – and orthodoxy. Indeed, you do not have a wonderful plan for your life, and without Christ, even if you do, it will come to nothing. If you have faith in God, then it is an entirely different story. God himself, by his sovereign kindness and foreordination, has a wonderful plan for your life, far beyond what you could have designed for yourself. As you walk in faith through Jesus Christ, this plan will unfold before you and become reality. This is God-centered theology, and true piety.

John was writing about evil spirits and false prophets. He said to the Christians, “You are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” This builds confidence not only unto God but it builds confidence into men. The great God is not out there being great by himself, but the great God is in you and being great through you. John boosts our self-esteem, and he builds it by hooking it up with the total power of God. A God-centered mindset does not eliminate the self. If we are human, there will be a self, and the self will be a center of consciousness. A God-centered mindset is one that defines the self relative to God. There will always be a ME. However, for the Christian it is no longer a ME-ME, but God-ME, a Christ-ME. God is not “out there” doing his own thing and winning his battles while we suffer defeat and humiliation. God is in us, causing us to win together with him. This is his will. This is how he is glorified. John continued, “Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God. Everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. Who is it that overcomes the world? Only the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.” Who is a winner in this world? Who defeats evil with good? Who comes out on top? Me. Me. Me! I am the one who has faith. I am a winner. I overcome. I come out on top. The one who is in me is greater than the one who is in the world. Therefore, I am greater than the world. God is in ME. We are not just talking about how great God is. We are not talking about how someone else is great. We are talking about ME. And God is in ME. If you believe in Jesus, then God is in you. If you have faith, then you are a winner. You overcome. You come out on top. See yourself this way. And this is your self-image and your self-esteem.

James wrote, “The faith-prayer will heal the sick. The Lord will raise him up.” He said this as an instruction to all believers and all churches. This is intended to be a part of the everyday life of believers, and not something out of reach. When he added, “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective,” he meant the believers. He meant you. You are supposed to think, “I am a righteous person. My prayer is powerful and effective. My faith-word and faith-prayer will heal the sick. God will perform a miracle when I show up.” He continued, “Elijah was a man like us.” He used the prophet of miracles as an illustration, and instead of saying that we will never be like him, James said that Elijah was like us. There is no striving, no looking into the distant future. Elijah’s example applies to us now. And James said that Elijah prayed, and it stopped the rain for three and a half years. Then he prayed again, and it started to rain. The prayer of Elijah was powerful and effective, and even controlled nature. You don’t need to strive to become like Elijah, so that eventually your prayer will have a little power. This Elijah who dictated the weather was like you. If you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you are a righteous person. Your prayer is powerful and effective. You. Everywhere the Scripture builds this image into us about ourselves, that we are supernatural people because of Jesus Christ. We would be nothing without Christ, but we are not without him. We are forever united with Christ by faith, and we are superhuman beings in him. You are infused with deity by the Holy Spirit, that is, if you have also received the baptism of the Holy Spirit after believing in Christ. If you have a lower opinion of yourself, then you reject the gospel.

 

The Phony Piety of Tradition

False humility is one of Satan’s preferred weapons against Christians to keep them weak, full of unbelief, and unable to receive from God. It is an efficient attack, because when this kind of counterfeit piety becomes their own ideal, they will fight against God to defend it. Once they remain like this for several generations, the deception becomes historic orthodoxy, and authentic orthodoxy becomes heresy. This religious machine perpetuates itself, requiring minimal effort from the devil. The Christians become like a bunch of trapped animals, where one would step on the others in the attempt to climb out, while the others would pull him back down. What should we do, if we see the true light of Jesus Christ beyond the walls of a fraudulent orthodoxy? If we are trapped in false piety or false humility, and if we are trapped in man-made doctrines and traditions like most of those who claim to follow Christ, what should we do? The answer is easy. Climb out! Step on the fakers. Crush the theologians. Kick down their followers. Tear apart their systems and creeds. Build stairs out of their corpses if necessary. Come out to the freedom that Jesus has purchased for you by his blood. Then if they are willing, rescue the survivors of the historic religious scam, and if they are unwilling, leave them there to die. Many prefer to rot dead in Satan’s hellhole than run free in Christ’s pastures.

Man-centered humility is universal. When Christians talk about humility, they usually refer to this kind. It is not based on understanding, but it regards self-deprecation as something inherently meritorious or honorable. This is why they are arrogant about how much they put down themselves, and if you refuse to follow their example and trample on the blood of Christ, then they call you arrogant. Christ-centered humility builds our self-esteem on Jesus Christ. When we have this correct and healthy self-image, we no longer trip up ourselves, and we are no longer our own hindrances. We leave behind foolish hang-ups established by man-made ideas, and for the first time we become effective in faith, in love, and a force for the gospel. Jesus called you the salt of the earth and the light of the world. If he did not want you to think this way about yourself, then he would not have said it. He wanted you to think this. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You. When you bravely admit this, then you are more likely to act like it. You will then have the effect of salt and light in this world.

Even some of the most arrogant people in the world would never say that they are the ambassadors of heaven, the sons of Almighty, the temple of the Spirit of God, seated at the right hand of the Most High, chosen to judge angels, with all things under their feet, wielding a name that dominates all three realms, and able to heal the sick, command the demons, receive visions and dreams, and prophesy the words of God. But we say all these things about ourselves. This is our image of ourselves. This is how we esteem ourselves. The gospel does not call us to destroy the self, or to dissolve it into God, but to sharpen it, to strengthen it, and to place it in relation to God and in submission to God. The root of sin is not in having a strong sense of self, or to possess a strong self-awareness or self-image, but it is in defining the self by the wrong things, such as money, or gender, race or country, or occupation, or social status, or even yourself. This is to define yourself by yourself or by the world. This is to worship as deity things that are not deity. This is the kind of self-definition or self-centeredness that is sinful. Self-deprecation often comes from the same root that defines the self by the self, and not by the gospel. Self-appreciation that is based on the self is counted as arrogance, but self-deprecation that is also based on the self is counted as humility. This is deception. Both are sinful. Both are arrogance. This is because both count the self as God, as the standard that defines everything else. Even an extremely strong self-esteem is not sinful, but it depends on why you have this strong self-esteem. You can say, “I can do this because I am the best!” Or you can say, “I can do all things by Jesus Christ who gives me strength.” You do not say, “I am God, so I can do all things.” And you do not say, “He is God, so he can do all things” But you say, “I can do all things, because God enables me to do all things.” As David said, “For by you I can run against a troop, and by my God I can leap over a wall.” God does not leap over a wall. You leap over a wall, but you do it by his ability.

Satan has beat down Christians by making them think that the self is evil, especially a vibrant and positive sense of self. You are made in the image of I AM, and you are going to have a sense of self anyway. The difference is that if you ignore the issue, then this sense of self is going to become warped and grotesque. It will be defined by the world, and shaped by circumstances. The religious trick is to destroy the self. If you think about yourself, then you are sinful and selfish. But you do think about yourself. If you are human, then you cannot avoid it. The fraudulent doctrine generates a contradiction within the person, and it causes false guilt and prevents awareness. Wake up from this deception. You must define yourself, and define yourself relative to God, relative to who you are in Jesus Christ according to the gospel. The first issue is not whether you have a low self-esteem or a high self-esteem, but to find the right self-esteem. And when you define yourself by Jesus Christ, you will find that you have a Christ-level self-esteem. It will be an extreme self-esteem, a super-esteem. It will be higher by entire dimensions compared to the highest self-esteem attainable by an unbeliever. You must discover the correct reference point for defining yourself, then define yourself relative to that reference point. God has his self-identity in himself. Man should find his self-identity in Christ. God defines himself in relation to himself. Man should define himself in relation to God.

Most Christian teachings aim to erode a healthy sense of self and not to build it up by the word of God. They make people become more and more defeated and full of doubt, all the while thinking that they have become more humble. They become more hypocritical and self-righteous in their weakness. And because they are self-righteous about it, they will defend their weakness and unbelief, and they will even write down this attitude in their creeds to make it permanent and to ensure it survives through the centuries. This is how Satan cements his victory. Examine the Bible verses used by the preachers. They either do not say what the preachers want them to say, or the verses in reality require a strong sense of self to make sense of them and to obey them. There are indeed some who misconstrue God’s grace, but the solution is not to destroy all conception of God’s grace, but to establish it upon Jesus Christ, who has satisfied divine justice so that divine grace may come upon us through faith. The same is true of the doctrine of self. Grasp the doctrine by the gospel, then you are on solid ground. Possess a clear definition of what you are and what you want in Christ Jesus.

 

Human Value and Theology

There are other terms that overlap with what we are talking about. We should think about them the same way. We will think about the self, but on the foundation of Christ. It is wrong to think about God in a way that destroys the self, for then there would be no self to think about God. It is wrong to think about self in a way that neglects God, for then the self would become God, and the result is an inaccurate image of the self. It is also blasphemy and idolatry. We will think about the self as vividly and intensely as we can, but we will center what we think about the self on God, especially as he has revealed himself in Jesus Christ.

An example of these other terms is self-value. This is close to what we mean by self-image or self-esteem. We think about this the same way. Christians oppose non-Christian theories on self-love, self-esteem, and so on. They complain about how false ideas have infected modern preaching, but they teach a version of these things that is far worse. Some people think that the idea of self-value is evil, or if we think about the topic at all, we ought to think of ourselves as having very little value. This is what the devil wants. God has the greatest self-value. He has infinite self-value, self-love, self-worth, or whatever term we wish to use. He ought to think this way about himself, because he indeed has infinite worth. He has value in himself, because of himself. He ought to have self-value because he indeed has value in himself. Man is made in the image of God, so the category of self-value also applies. The difference is in the reference point, or the basis of man’s value.

Man has no value in himself, but his value is assigned by God, by what God says about him, by how God treats him, and by what God has done for him or given him. God has value because of what he is. Man has value because of what God says he is. Man’s value is not intrinsic, but assigned and derived. If the sense of self-value is self-centered, it is false. It is idolatrous. If the self-value is God-centered, then it is right. And this God-centered sense of self-value can be extremely high. It depends on what value God has assigned to him. A God-centered mindset does not mean that one has no self-value or low self-value, but in Christ it means that a man ought to have a trillion times more self-value than even the most delusional and arrogant non-Christian. This is because God does for us more than what we can even ask or think. The reality of God is better than the wishful thinking of man.

Jesus said that the sparrows appeared insignificant, but not one of them could fall to the ground apart from the will of God. Then he said, “Fear not, therefore. You are worth more than many sparrows.” He was addressing issues related to eschatology and missiology, among other things. He dictated items concerning theology and character on the basis of the value of man. Was this man-centered theology? Jesus challenged the religious people, and said if any of them had a sheep that fell into a pit on the Sabbath, they would take hold of it and pull it out. Then he said, “How much more valuable is a man than a sheep!” Thus he decided policy on something as important and controversial as the Sabbath on the basis of the value of man. Was this man-centered thinking? Jesus said that the birds do not sow, or reap, or harvest, but the Father still feeds them. And he said, “Are you not much more valuable than they?” What is our problem, if we worry about things like money, food, and clothes? He said, “O you of little faith!” He made an argument about the value of man into a basis for faith in God. If a preacher on television uses the same reasoning, he would be branded a man-centered, charismatic, health and wealth heretic. And if those self-proclaimed “God-centered” Christians face what the Jesus in the Bible said, instead of the Jesus they invented, they would make the same accusation against Jesus. This is because they have never been God-centered, but tradition-centered — that is, man-centered. They attack “man-centered” theology only when the “man” is not one of them. They consider themselves God-centered because they regard their tradition — their “man” — as God.

Jesus appealed to human value to establish doctrine, decide policy, and build faith. If I were to apply the theology of Jesus, I would have to think, “God considers the life of every sparrow, so that not one can fall to the ground apart from his will. And I am worth more than many sparrows. So as I confess the Lord Jesus before people, I will not fear what men can do to me, but I will fear God, who can destroy both the body and the soul in hell, including the bodies and souls of those who oppose me. I will acknowledge the Lord Jesus before men, and the Lord Jesus will acknowledge me before God.” And I would have to think, “God did not make me for the Sabbath, but he made the Sabbath for me. God does not reduce my value, but he assigns high value to me. This value is much greater than the religious traditions of men. I am worth more than man-made doctrines and creeds. Therefore, I have the freedom to receive God’s gifts on any day of the week, including the Sabbath. And I am liberated to perform works of mercy on any day of the week, including the Sabbath. This includes ministering God’s gifts to other people, such as miracles of healing.” And then I would have to think, “God feeds the birds who don’t do anything except fly around and have fun. And I am worth more than birds. Therefore, I have faith that God prospers me and protects me. I will not worry about money, food, and clothes. I have faith because of ME — my worth, my value, and my importance. This is a value that God has assigned to me, and I will not allow those worthless religious people and their creeds and institutions to take this confidence away from me. I shall damn them to hell before I allow them to diminish even one little thing that belongs to me in Christ. They can burn in hell, but in Christ I shall live in heaven even while I walk the earth.”

This is what Jesus requires me to think. This is the line of reasoning he requires me to follow. Does this mean that Jesus was a man-centered preacher? A people-pleaser? Was he a seeker-friendly false teacher, telling people only what they wished to hear? He did not please the religionists when he opposed their traditions with arguments based on human value. His doctrine is also opposed by those who call themselves the guardians of the faith today. Jesus was not a false teacher, but the problem is that the Christians who insist on a God-centered theology today do not know what it means to be God-centered, and what God-centered theology means to the human self. If Jesus was a true teacher from God, then this means that God-centered theology does not demand a devaluation or destruction of the self, but instead it catapults a person’s sense of self — his self-love, self-esteem, self-value, self-worth, and all the other terms we could use about the self – to extreme heights, to superhuman and supernatural levels far beyond the imaginations of man-centered thinking. Man-centered theology is wrong if it is an absolute man-centeredness, but if in a context of faith our attention is centered on man as he is related to God, then it is a God-centered theology of man. Such a God-centered theology increases self-value and self-esteem. This is not historic orthodoxy, a fraudulent orthodoxy that keeps men in defeat and unbelief, and in demonic bondage. This is authentic orthodoxy, which leads men to gladness and triumph by Jesus Christ.