feel good Christianity

[debbym]

Why is there so much animosity towards efforts to repair self esteem, among self denying Christians.

It seems there is a lack of communication, a gap that all kinds of criticism and judgement fills in.

We cannot say self love, but we can say self respect.

We need to prepare the road for the coming of the Lord, make the high ways low and build up the low ways. Those who have healthy self image seem unable to conceive the experience of those who have no self image. It seems this condition of having healthy self worth is confused with pride. Additionally, if you have no self esteem at all, this is confused with humility.

This essential self worth, once lost is not easily regained from our relationships, in family or in the church. God wants us to have healthy sense of our infinite value. But at the same time, a selfish love of self is exactly what God wants to bring to an end in our lives, to save us from the ways of death.

See Proverbs 16:25.

deb

[Ellen]

You obviously have some personal anecdotes to go along with this rant.

There are a lot of people with low self esteem that is for sure.

[Neil D]

Not exactly sure where you are coming from...

Human nature is centered on the self...It is this 'evolutionary' philosophy that is considered to have supplant the "self-less" nature that God originated in human...Hence, to be sinful is to be full of self....

Recently, there is a mixing of terms in which the DIY-er is likely to operate from the basic instincts that God seemed to have placed with in the human..Some feel that those instincts of self, ie self preservation, are God ordained...

There is a subtlety here on how one operates and how one views life in general and how one approaches God...It can have eternal consequences if carried to the extreme..

I am sure that Olger can explain these natures, or attempt to, better than I, since he claims to have expertise in this area..My communications skills do not reside in this area, but I also don't necessarily agree with Olger conclusions ...perhaps his definitions don't fit mine.... smile...

[debbym]

there are reasons why sin is so bad, not only does it bring ultimate death, but it brings pain, confusion, and destruction of relationships, and a loss of our value of our selves. a large part of our health is a healthy sense of balanced selfhood.

i spoke to a Dr. at Wiemar with one question, "How much of our health is good diet, exercise, use of water, sunshine, rest, abstaining from harmful substances, fresh air , and how much is trust in God, a healthy mental outlook?

He explained the healthy mental outlook was 50% of our health. When because of boundary violations we have a diminished sense of our selves our relationship to God is compromised.

Sin is violation of the boundaries of our relationships, if there are no violations there is no sin. the one relationship through which we experience all other relationships is our relationship to our-self.

when we accept love and accept ourselves as lovable by God even when we are sinful and perfectly flawed, then we can be healthy and have a foundation for trust in God. Then we can love as we are loved.

Love must be received before it can be given, we love because He first loved us,. But if we in some way are impaired in receiving that love, we cannot fully return that love to God.

i believe we, the members of the SDA church, suffer more from a broken down sense of self then from an inflated over confident sense of self.

Jesus values very person, we do not need an artificial fix to make us feel good, we need a restored, regenerated, strong sense of self.

i am really not feeling this is a rant, i am just conversational about this. About 30 years ago, our church did a survey, it may have been conference wide, and they found our greatest need as members was for emotional well being, or just emotional health.

deb