God tells us to love others BETTER than ourselves. We are born loving ourselves too much. The more we focus on self the more selfish we become.
Those who are "others" focused almost never speak about themselves. We love others by forgetting about self, losing pride and focusing on Christ, that will make us love others better.
All the places, only about three, in the Bible that speak about esteem is condemning esteem for self and redirecting our esteem toward God. The whole self esteem teaching is anti-Christian and anti-God.
Philippians 2:3-4 "…2 then make my joy complete by being of one mind, having the same love, being united in spirit and purpose.
3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or empty pride, but in humility consider others more important than yourselves.
4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.…"
So many people in the psychological industry focus on verse 4 that says "you should look not only to your own interests", to justify focus on self, but that statement does not say to focus on self first, it merely explains that we have a propensity to naturally focus on self, rather God is telling us to take into account the needs of others.
Ephesians 5:29 " 29 Indeed, no one ever hated his own body, but he nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church."
Anyone who says they hate themselves, is not aware that they don't hate themselves, God says no one ever hated himself. Those who claim that they hate themselves are merely expressing their anger that they do not have exactly what they want, which is clearly an expression of self love.
Even those who would want to kill themselves are focused on the helplessness to obtain what they want so they want to end a life in protest at not achieving their goal.
Those who lack confidence are more fixated on what others think of them than on Christ. When we know that Christ died for us, that He dwells in us and we can do everything He has called us to do, then we do not lack confidence, perhaps self confidence yes, but our confidence as believers ought to be in Christ, not ourselves.
If we have the confidence in Christ that a small child has in his father or mother, then we don't need to be worried about our own confidence. We can trust Christ and proceed in strength and resolve because we know Who He is!
I have no desire to have confidence in me, the day I left that behind was the freest day of my life. My joy and confidence is now in Christ, the One Who directs me and gives me what I need when I need it. It is when I take my eyes off of Christ that I begin to falter. Just like Peter when he walked on water with Christ. He was fine while he had his eyes on Christ, it was when his focus was on what he was doing himself that he began to sink.
Bottom Line: Stop focusing on your own confidence and place it in Christ, then fear has no control over us.
