Elisabeth Elliot: Samuel Johnson, who was a Christian and a very wise man, said, "Self-love is a form of arrogance. It doesn't hide our faults from us, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others."

Lisa Barry: Has God ever convicted you about something deep in your heart but later when you told a friend about it, she tried to tell you that you weren't at fault? The comments are usually like this, "Oh, don't worry about that. Nobody's perfect. Just forget about it." It's tempting to cling to that kind of sentiment, isn't it? We don't like feeling guilty. But what was intended by the friend to be an innocent form of encouragement, became a way to avoid God' conviction. Couldn't the teaching of self-love do that too?

Today on Gateway To Joy, Elisabeth Elliot talks about self-esteem and what the ramifications are of living out that philosophy. Let's hear what she has to say.

Elisabeth Elliot: "You are loved with an everlasting love." That's what the Bible says, "and underneath are the everlasting arms." This is your friend Elisabeth Elliot, talking with you again today on the subject of "The Two Selves." I get that idea from the Bible. It says in Colossians 3:9, "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self."

We've been talking about self-esteem and self-image. I always want to ask, when I hear people talking about their concern for their poor self-esteem and their low self-image, which self are you talking about? The old one or the new one? The Bible tells us not to learn to love ourselves, but to put off the old self and to put on the new one. And I really don't know any way of putting on a new self without concentrating on loving God. Not on loving myself, what a waste of time! What a colossal waste of time and energy to learn to love myself!

I was reading yesterday at the end of the program a letter from Jessica Goforth of North Carolina. Bless her heart, she's fourteen years old, and she tells about how she found herself being very attracted to a certain young man. She said, "As I got to know him, I realized that he was different. I was thirteen. I know he thought I was just a silly little girl, and I guess I was. After we moved, I began to think about him a lot. He was on every page of my diary. Finally I told my mom about it. She gave me very wise advice. She said, 'Jeff is a fine young man.'" And, of course, I have changed his name.

"'Jeff is a fine young man. If I were your age, I would like him, too. But you need to pray and ask the Lord to make you worthy to marry a man like Jeff.' That was good advice, and I took it. I prayed constantly. My point in telling you all this is that by reading your book I'm finding myself able to focus on God's will rather than on Jeff. I would appreciate your prayers as I go through the trials and tribulation, for 'the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its perfect result, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.'" That's James 1:3,4.

Thank you so much, Jessica, for that lovely letter. And I hope that it will encourage some other girls, and maybe some boys, of your age to trust God to give them the right person at the right time and not to get too silly until you're of marriageable age. This girl Jessica was learning to concentrate on God rather than on herself, and this is what I want to emphasize today.

Samuel Johnson, who was a Christian and a very wise man, said, "Self-love is a form of arrogance. It doesn't hide our faults from us, but persuades us that they escape the notice of others." I want to read that again. Samuel Johnson says, "Self-love is a form of arrogance. It doesn't hide our faults from us, but it persuades us that they escape the notice of others."

And when I hear people talking about self-esteem, almost always it seems to me that they get their ideas from what other people think of them. Their mother or father, or the brothers and sisters, said some nasty things about them when they were little, so because of that they have poor self-esteem. Well, who of us hasn't had nasty things said about us? Maybe not as bad as somebody else's, but we've all got plenty of good reason for not thinking too highly of ourselves. But when we begin to think that people think well of us, then our self-image improves, doesn't it? Is that a good thing or a bad thing? For whom do I live?

The man who has an eye to his own reputation, the Bible says, is not to be trusted. It's the one who cares nothing for his reputation--but everything for whether or not he pleases God--who is to be trusted. Self-love disposes us to resent criticism, because we might have to acknowledge that the criticism is true. We are secretly conscious of plenty of defects and sins, which we hope nobody notices. And we enjoy innumerable poses by which in reality nobody is deceived.

The article that I quoted (I think on Monday) on how to love yourself said this: "Express total unconditional acceptance for where you are at this moment." Now that really doesn't make sense to me. Am I to assume that at this moment, I'm exactly where I ought to be or what I ought to be? No, I don't think so. It isn't the contemplation of what I am, or even of what God has made me, but the being what God has made me and the contemplation of Himself--what He Himself is--that gives me joy.

I'll read that again. It isn't the contemplation of what I am, or even of what God has made me, but the being what God has made me and the contemplation of what He is that gives me joy. Now I want to ask you this question. What do you know about yourself that you hope nobody else knows? Is there anything? As you come to know God, haven't you sometimes just been sickened at the sight of yourself? I have. Isaiah was.

When he saw the holiness of God, his immediate reaction--and a very honest and truthful one it was--was "Woe is me, for I am undone. I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell amidst a people of unclean lips." And you know, I had to pray that very same prayer this morning. I try to be honest. I have to confess to you that I pride myself on being honest. And that's a sin. Priding myself on being honest is a sin. But God was speaking to me about dishonesty in the form of exaggeration, in the form of coloring a story just a little bit to make it more interesting.

Is there anything about you that you hope nobody else knows? Is there anything that makes you sick to think about? It's a revelation of truth, isn't it? And what happens when God reveals that truth to you? Instantly lay it out before Him. Face it. Confess it. I must not live from myself or for myself, but from the Source--from God Himself. And I'm not to learn anything more about myself than the Lord gives me to know by His presence living in me. It is the indwelling Christ, Christ in me, who is my hope of glory, not the improvement of my image. And I can trust my loving Heavenly Father to give me to know whatever I need to know.

Any flashes of self-knowledge I recognize as His gift. They don't come to me through my curious self-examination. But through prayer, through reading His Word, through honestly trying to face myself in the knowledge of who He is, trying to look upon myself as God looks upon me. And then focusing on Him and saying, "Lord, teach me. Show me. Change me. Transform me. Transfigure me. Make me the woman you want me to be."

I'm an old woman now. You know that it's an old woman who is talking to you. I have much to learn. I wonder if I'll ever learn it before death calls me. But I want to. And so I pray that God will make me exactly the kind of old woman that He wants me to be--an old woman who glorifies Him, who praises Him, who lives a life of praise and thanksgiving. And so I offer back to Him all that I am, all that I have, all that I do, and all that I suffer. And when He reveals some new area that needs cleansing or confession, I offer it back to Him as a new act of self-sacrifice.

George MacDonald has said, "We can no more forget ourselves than we can forget a raging tooth. It's not in forgetting, but in finding our deeper, truer self--the Christ in us--that we will find peace." We can't forget ourselves anymore than we can forget a toothache, and I have to say I've never had a really bad toothache. But they tell me that once you've had a toothache, at the time you have the toothache it's the worst pain in the world. You can't forget a raging tooth, and we can't forget our old selves.

But we can daily make the choice between feeding the old self and feeding the new self. And how can you feed the new self without concentrating on God, without communion with Him, reading His Word, listening, being still before Him, and saying, "Lord, reveal to me what I need to know about myself today and then help me to do exactly what You tell me to do about that"? God bless you.

Lisa Barry: This has been a great series so far. I hope you've gotten as much out of these messages as I have. If you'd like to hear them again or share them with a friend, call or write to secure your own personal copy of the series. It's called "The Two Selves." The cost is $11.50, and you can purchase it when you send that amount along with your request to:

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Be sure and be with us again tomorrow for another look at self-esteem right here on Gateway To Joy.