a view through annie's eyes

The following are the notes I recently took as I studied self worth:

“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”–Eleanor Roosevelt

 When we feel inferior, we tend to react in one of two ways:

1. We put ourselves down or artificially inflate ourselves (brag). 
2. We put someone else down or artificially inflate their worth (flattery).

WE HAVE NO RIGHT TO RESPOND THIS WAY.

We are fearfully and wonderfully made.

Psalm 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

We are chosen.

2 Thessalonians 2:13-14  But we ought always to thank God for you, brothers loved by the Lord, because from the beginning God chose you^[a] to be saved through the sanctifying work of the Spirit and through belief in the truth. He called you to this through our gospel, that you might share in the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

Don’t overestimate yourself.

To be prideful is to sin against God.

Isaiah 37:23   Who is it you have insulted and blasphemed? Against whom have you raised your voice and lifted your eyes in pride? Against the Holy One of Israel!

Ezekiel 28:2 “Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, ‘This is what the Sovereign LORD says: ” ‘In the pride of your heart you say, “I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas.” But you are a man and not a god, though you think you are as wise as a god.

Psalm 10:4  In his pride the wicked does not seek him; in all his thoughts there is no room for God.

Proverbs 16:18  Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.

Proverbs 8:13  To fear the LORD is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behavior and perverse speech.

Don’t underestimate God.

God has the power to raise up and bring low.

Isaiah 2:11   The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the pride of men brought low; the LORD alone will be exalted in that day.

Ezekiel 21:26   this is what the Sovereign LORD says: Take off the turban, remove the crown. It will not be as it was: The lowly will be exalted and the exalted will be brought low.

1 Samuel 2:7   The LORD sends poverty and wealth; he humbles and he exalts.

Whom does the Lord esteem?

Isaiah 66:2 -Has not my hand made all these things, and so they came into being?” declares the LORD. “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, and trembles at my word.

The highest position in the Kingdom of God is servant, one our Master chose for Himself.

Mark 10:45   For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.

Take your appropriate chair.

Luke 14:7-11  When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: ⁸“When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. ⁹If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this man your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. ¹⁰But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. ¹¹For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.

“True humility is intelligent self respect which keeps us from thinking too highly or too meanly of ourselves. It makes us modest by reminding us how far we have come short of what we can be.”  – Ralph Washington Sockman