If you want to eventually accept yourself and improve your self-esteem, decide right now that nothing negative about you will ever come out of your mouth. Acknowledge the good things. “I pray that your participation in the faith may become effective through knowing every good thing that is in us for the glory of Christ.” Philemon 1:6. The participation (or “communication,” in the English version) of our faith becomes effective when we acknowledge all the good things that are in us through our union with Christ Jesus – not all the bad points.

The devil wants us to be aware of every negative thing we see in ourselves because he doesn’t want us to communicate our faith effectively. He wants us to constantly dwell on our pitiful state and talk about it. Being the accuser of the brethren (Revelation 12:9-10), he continually tries to divert our attention away from who we are in Christ, focusing instead on our weaknesses. The devil presents us with many opportunities to think negatively about ourselves so that we revert to the old thought pattern, in which most of us grew up.

Thus, we fall back into the lie that our worth depends on our performance and that because of our faults, we are worthless. One essential reason we shouldn’t speak negatively about ourselves is that we believe much more in what we say than what anyone else says. But once we truly understand who we are in Christ and realize all that He has done for us by shedding His blood to make us worthy, we become aware that meditating on our flaws and mistakes is an affront to our heavenly Father. Acts 10:15 says: “…What God has cleansed, no longer consider unholy.“

Righteous Before God

One of the first revelations God gave me in His Word is about justification. By “revelation,” I mean the day when suddenly what I understood became a part of me. This knowledge isn’t just intellectual; you no longer need to renew your thoughts on the subject because you no longer doubt or hope it’s true, you know. I knew I was justified in Christ when God spoke to me through 2 Corinthians 5:21: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”

Justification is a gift from God

Romans 4:24 (Amp.) says: “…righteousness [that is, being acceptable to God] will be credited to us also who believe in (trust in, cling to, rely on) God, who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.” That day, I understood that justification is a gift. It is “imputed, granted, and credited” to us when we believe in what God has done for us through His Son Jesus Christ. Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin so that we might become, in Him, the righteousness of God.

Above all, the devil doesn’t want us to live in the reality of our justification before God. He wants us to stare blankly at what’s wrong with us, instead of thinking about our righteousness obtained through the blood of Jesus. I had been living for several years according to this revelation of divine righteousness and teaching it when an event occurred. It highlighted the importance of not speaking anything negative about ourselves.

We are held accountable for the revelation we receive; therefore, I was responsible for the negative words I had spoken against myself. (…)

This text is an excerpt from the book “How to Gain Confidence in Myself ?” written by Joyce Meyer.

We invite you to read the following article “The Importance of Speaking in Line with the Word of God“.