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Do you ever feel like you’ve reverted to your high school days:

• Pimply faced
• Braces
• Two left feet
• Awkward

I think we all relate to those feelings of inadequacy, insecurity, and awkwardness. And it’s in these times that the narrative we’ve heard all of our life starts replying in our head.

It’s strange to me that the pat-answers and cliches I heard growing up, which never actually helped build my confidence at all, are still being used to try to help women feel better about themselves.

Some of them have been repackaged in more modern sayings – but boiled down they are still the same-old, same-old – and they aren’t any more effective today than they were back then.

The issue I have with these lies isn’t even that they aren’t effective, it is that they aren’t biblical.

Not only are they not biblical, they contradict the Bible, and because of that, it is time to expose them for the lies that they are and then combat them with the truth!

3 Confidence-Boosting Lies Christians Believe

There is no reason to battle insecurity when we know who we are in Christ.

There is no reason to lack confidence when God is on our side: if He is on our side, then who can be against us? Because God is all-powerful, undefeated, and incapable of being defeated!

And that is why these 3 lies must be exposed for the lies that they are so that we can begin building our confidence where it should be.

1. The lie of self-esteem

This lie is very sneaky and has subtly wormed its way into the church, so much so that even strong believers have bought into the lie that we need to have good self-esteem.

But just a glance at the word should cause us to pause and consider if self-esteem is perhaps unbiblical.

To esteem something is to praise or admire it, to worship it. Self-esteem is rooted in pride and should have no place among Christians.

Nowhere in the Bible do we see the idea of self-esteem; in fact we see the opposite.

Paul told us to esteem others more highly than ourselves.

Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4.

When godly men saw God for who He was or saw His glory (Isaiah), they fell on their faces and acknowledged their filth and worthlessness.

But they discovered their value in God!

“Surely men of low degree are a vapor, men of high degree are a lie; if they are weighed on the scales, they are altogether lighter than vapor.” Psalm 62:9

There is great freedom in allowing the mirror of God’s Word and the perfect holiness of God’s nature to expose our own filth and corruption. James 1:22-25

Not only do we see ourselves rightly, but we are free from having to constantly prove ourselves through our talents and abilities, stroking our ego. 

God has already completed us, by His grace.

We esteem Him, and in esteeming Him, we are free to esteem others — and the gift we’re given is a deep sense of knowing who we are in Him…knowing our worth and value are secure in our identity in Christ and can never be taken away! James 4:10

2. The lie that you are enough

This is another lie that has seeped into the church, and it was easily embraced because it soothed the nagging question of “Am I enough?”

I think every woman has asked that about herself:

• Am I a good enough mom?
• Am I a good enough wife?
• Am I a good enough lover?
• Am I skinny enough?
• Am I curvy enough?
• Am I pretty enough?
• Am I smart enough?
• Am I successful enough?

The list goes on ad infinitum. And the philosophy that has arisen from those nagging questions is, “Yes, you are enough. Just as you are….enough.”

But that’s not entirely true.

On our own, just as we are, we fall short of enough…..very short. In fact, on our own, we can never hope to be enough.

Not only is this a lie, it is a dangerous one because it gives wings to our pride and feeds our tendency to self-worship. 

David said, “When my heart is overwhelmed, lead me to the rock that is higher than I.” Psalm 61:2.

When we’re overwhelmed with feelings of inadequacy, the most godly thing we can do is acknowledge our inadequacy apart from Christ and then turn to Him – the Rock that is higher than we can ever hope to be – and find our confidence in Him!

We will never be enough — no matter how hard we try, how high we jump. Romans 3:12 reminds us that there are none who are good….not even one person on planet Earth. 

It is the grace of God that completes us and makes us enough — but apart from Him, we will always fall short!

3. The lie of trusting yourself

While many Christians may not ever boldly tell someone “trust yourself”, (because, well, there are enough Scriptures that command us to trust God that it would sound sacrilegious)….

we hear this philosophy in the church packaged as:

• Follow your heart
• Be yourself
• Go with your gut (I’ve used this one often)

And when we do “follow our heart” or “go with our gut” and it turns out we were right, rather than acknowledging that maybe God was giving us divine discernment, we feel confident in ourselves.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?” Jeremiah 17:9

The philosophy of trusting ourselves is humanistic….it’s the worship of our own cunning, our own wit, and our own ability to reason and discern situations based on gut instinct.

It completely removes God from the picture: it erases the power of the Holy Spirit that urges us in a certain direction.

It denies the power of God that enables us to divinely understand situations that are beyond our ability to know or discern. 

All throughout the Psalms we see David – the same David who killed a man twice his size, the same David that successfully evaded Saul’s multiple attempts on his life, the same David that is legendary as one of the greatest kings of Israel – affirm his absolute confidence in God.

He refused to trust in the power of transportation, money, fame… or even his own ability as king – he trusted in God alone.

“For You have been a shelter for me, a strong tower from the enemy… I will trust in the shelter of Your wings.” Psalms 61:4

“The righteous shall be glad in the Lord, and trust in Him, and all the upright in heart shall glory.” Psalm 64:10

“By awesome deeds in righteousness You will answer us, O God of our salvation You who are the confidence of all the ends of the earth” Psalm 65:5

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