‘Mankind looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart’
– 1 Samuel 16:7.

People who don’t know you will tend to judge you by your appearance or first impressions.
People who know you well, will tend to judge you by your words and actions – by judge I mean decide what you are like as a person.
God as stated looks at the heart.

You may not agree with this next statement, because it makes us feel uncomfortable, but sometimes other people close to us, can know us better than we know ourselves.
Why do I say that ?
Because the heart is deceitful above all things, ….and we can have a false view of ourselves, an over inflated view of ourselves, or a low self image.
Our feelings are not trustworthy.
To know yourself, you have to be objective, look at what you do and say…that will tell you what you’re really like.
The Bible says that out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks. So people who know us well, who hear what we come out with under pressure, or in our unguarded moments, get a glimpse of our heart and what’s going on inside us. Scary ?
Well it is if you haven’t faced up to it yet. If you haven’t opened your heart to God and been totally honest before Him, yes, very scary.
If you haven’t faced up to your sin when you became a Christian (if you have). And by sin, I’m not just talking about stealing, swearing, adultery, obvious outward things….but attitudes and motives. The thought life.
The sort of stuff Jesus pointed us to in the sermon on the mount.

Read Matthew 5:21, 22, 27, 28, ……….do not worry, do not judge, and so on.

This is vital. Without acknowledgement of sin, there can be no repentance, without repentance there can be no forgiveness or salvation. It’s the starting point, the bad news before the good news.

You can face the reality of who you are apart from God - a lying, thieving, blaspheming adulterer at heart , when you realise that God knows what you are, your darkest dreams and fantasies…..and He still loves you.
And once you know God loves you, you can love yourself, unless of course you reject God’s love and forgiveness. And when you know and love yourself, you can love others…..with God’s love.

People with low self image are encouraged by the world to think better of themselves, to be positive…..but that isn’t the answer. They feel guilty and wretched, because they are guilty and wretched – we all are outside of Christ.
It is He who makes us righteous, holy, children of God. It is He who gives us value, and meaning, and makes us into the people we were intended to be.

You know…to believe that most people are basically good caring people and to look for that good in everyone, is not Christian…..it is humanist, the belief in mankind, that we can do it.
Biblical Christianity is more honest. It says we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we all like sheep have gone ashtray, each of us has turned to his own way, there is nobody righteous, no not one. That’s the reality. But God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
We deserve hell, …we deserve to pay for all our sins in the lake of fire, ….but the Lord cares about us so much that He died in our place so that we don’t have to.
We need to receive this truth and believe it.

When you are honest about yourself and what you’re like inside, and believe that God’s loves you and forgives you anyway, then you can accept and love anyone…even those who treat you as an enemy.
So I know everyone I meet is a sinner, with impure motives – someone prone to greed, lust, jealousy, selfishness. But I don’t judge them…why ?….because without Jesus that’s who I am too. I’m no better than they, I’ve simply experienced the forgiveness and love of God in Christ.
God has changed me and is changing me into a new person – but I can’t take the credit for that, it’s Him who’s doing it…..I just have to co-operate with Him in it.

Paul himself said, ‘Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners - of whom I am the worst’ (1 Timothy 1:15).
He had recognised what He was without Christ, but also what he was and could become in Christ.

When I worked in alcohol rehabilitation I first came into contact with psychology and counselling theory – Freud and so on. And like many Christians I asked the question how all this self analysis fits in with the Bible.

A lot of it is to do with language – similar things described with different words.
But some of it is to do with foolish thinking. If you are a psychologist or counsellor who doesn’t believe in God, then your foundation is wrong, so everything else will be not right.
For example you will believe that guilt is false, a conditioned response to be denied, rather than the feeling which confirms the truth about our sinful state outside of God’s forgiveness.

Books, psychologists, psychiatrists, and so on are of some use….but this is worldly wisdom….which is foolishness to God. Even if some of it is helpful, it will never be quite right.
All Scripture is God breathed, is always right, and should be our starting point for everything. And what the world makes very complicated…. in trying to avoid acknowledging God,… is actually very simple.
It’s not that the Bible doesn’t address the inner person and inner healing, and mental and emotional healing, and so on. It’s that we don’t want to hear what it says, because it puts the responsibility not on our parents, not on our dna, not on our circumstances, …..but on us.

Two sentences, if truly believed and acted upon, what they express will address most mental and emotional health problems.

• Forgive others, and receive God’s forgiveness yourself.

• ‘Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding’

The answer to low self image, worry, anxiety, stress, depression. Why do we find it so hard ?

Over the years, in my experience there are two main mental, emotional, and spiritual problems that people face in the Church. If we’ve been properly converted and born again they shouldn’t be, but the reality in the Church is, that they are problems for many.
They don’t need to be, they can be dealt with through Jesus.
One is to know without a doubt that you are forgiven, all your sin, completely. That you are loved and accepted by God, even though He knows everything about you.
And the other is to forgive others – particularly your parents, or a parent or step parent.
These issues hold people back and screw them up more than anything else.
Don’t let guilt and unforgiveness hold you back. These may be issues for you, but no one can make you receive forgiveness or give forgiveness, it’s a choice, a decision of the will that only you can make, with God’s help.
Know the power of the forgiveness of God. Let Jesus be your Saviour.
‘Perfect love casts out fear’
Don’t let either guilt or bitterness reign in your life – Jesus Christ is Saviour and Lord.

The other area to believe and act on is to trust God, that means to depend on Him, to leave stuff in God’s hands, to know without a doubt that He loves you and is working for the very best for your life – or to put it another way, rest, be at peace, be content, chill in the Lord.
To walk by faith and not by sight, to walk humbly before your God (not thinking you know better). Worry is an expression of doubt, and/or pride, that we don’t actually trust God.
Kill it, put it to death, don’t accept it. God is real, He loves you and will look after you.
Let Jesus be Lord of your life.
‘Seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these other things will be given to you as well’
‘Fix your eyes on Jesus’

These are fundamentals about who Jesus is and what He has done – Him as your personal Saviour and Lord. Is He ?

You might be confused about one thing in all this. Do we focus on ourselves and self examination …or on God, or a bit of both at different times, or what ?

It’s as you draw close to God, honestly…and that’s key, don’t pretend before God (if we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us) …then He is able to reveal the truth to you and change you. It’s as we come closer to God that we discover what we are like inside because His light reveals it – make sense ?

And as we are obedient to Him…. – it has been in the most challenging times of my life, usually in evangelism or serving others in some way, that God has revealed to me most about myself. My self discovery has not come about by lots of introspection, but by honesty, and revelation from God. And it has come in the process of serving God and others.

You’re probably finding this with the Way of the Master course that we’ve been doing – evangelism is both challenging and revealing, isn’t it.
You have to confess your fears and let God deal with them, for example.

Know yourself, find yourself, by dying to yourself, …..by giving your all to God.

Read Luke 9:23-26.

It’s about Jesus, following Him wholeheartedly, serving Him effectively, allowing His Spirit to transform us as we give up self, and our wants and rights. Jesus Christ is Saviour and Lord.