Don’t Speak Negatively of Yourself: Don’t settle for less #01

Don’t speak negatively of yourself.  It seems so obvious. Why would we want to say negative things about ourselves? Honestly, there are lots of reasons. Sometimes, we think it’s humility. Or maybe we really messed up and want to let everyone know that’s normal for us. It could be self-deprecating. On the other hand, some people really think they have no value, can’t do anything right, and are just failures.  It may surprise you, but I think the two extremes may actually be very close to each other.

Most of us do one or the other, likely both, at different times in our lives. The question is, when does it become a problem in that the feelings become self-fulling prophesies? Then, they have a real impact on not only us, but people around us.

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However, we’re going to see how these same traits can be applied to becoming a “successful” Christian.  Someone who not only has an idea what Christianity is really about, but who also lives it.  Finally, who also does the Great Commission and not what Dallas Willard calls the Great Omission.

But there’s still more. When we settle for less in this life, it affects, obviously, this life. But when settling for less is applied to Christianity, it can be an effect that literally lasts forever.

With that in mind, here’s the first one, from 23 Things Successful People Never Do on bestlifeonline.com:  Don’t speak negatively of yourself.

✏️ It may sound overly simplistic, but the most important difference between those who succeed in life and those who don’t is how they talk about themselves. If you speak negatively about yourself, discounting your achievements and insinuating you can’t do something, that only serves to hurt your ability to succeed down the line.

“You can transform your life using the power of the spoken word,” says James Sweigert, a lifestyle expert and author of If You Say So. “There is greatness in all of us and the universe wants us all to flourish. Claim and manifest the things you want. Make your mind up to be happy! The universe will present any story you tell it, negative or positive. So be on your own side.”

23 Things Successful People Never Do

Don’t speak negatively of yourself

OK.  Obviously, to some/many/most people this is obvious. Sadly, reality says otherwise. I can’t believe anyone always feels good about themselves. And for those of us who have depression issues, it’s certainly not true. It’s just not possible to not think negatively, let alone not talk negatively.

To some extent, that’s also true from a Christian point of view.  To some extent.  However, some changes are needed.  It maybe seems weird, but there are two totally opposite ways that some (many?) Christians perceive themselves.  As with most extremes, I think both are, well, for lack of a better word – extreme – and therefore not right.  As usual, someplace in the middle is where we should be.

That may sound odd to most Christians.  After all, Jesus told us something about being the least.  You may remember it.

What we’re looking for in that passage is this: For he who is least among you all—he is the greatest.  As Jesus often said, things are kind of upside down in Heaven.  The least will be the greatest.  The last will be first.

There is one catch to that though.  It has to be true.  And it’s not like Jesus doesn’t know the truth.  After all, notice verse 47: Jesus, knowing their thoughts… .  Therefore, if we lie to ourselves about just how far behind everyone else we are, Jesus is going to know.  Just imagine being caught in a lie to Him.  I know, sometimes we think we’re being humble by putting ourselves down. But He knows better.

It should be obvious that this is the wrong thing to do when it’s not true.  Should be.  But then, we all do it.  The truth is though, it’s false humility.  It’s a lie to others, to ourselves, and to God.

Don’t speak negatively of ourselves – how does that relate to being humble?

However, did you know that putting ourselves down isn’t what humility in the Bible is even about?  Let’s look at that.

📖† HUMILITY — a freedom from arrogance that grows out of the recognition that all we have and are comes from God. The Greek philosophers despised humility because to them it implied inadequacy, lack of dignity, and worthlessness. This is not the meaning of humility as defined by the Bible. Jesus is the supreme example of humility (Matt. 11:29; Mark 10:45; John 13:4–17; Phil. 2:5–8), and He is completely adequate and of infinite dignity and worth. Biblical humility is not a belittling of oneself (Matt. 6:16–18; Rom. 12:3), but an exalting or praising of others, especially God and Christ (John 3:30; Phil. 2:3). Humble people focus more on God and others than on themselves.  ¹Youngblood, R. F., Bruce, F. F., & Harrison, R. K., Thomas Nelson Publishers (Eds.). (1995). In Nelson’s new illustrated Bible dictionary. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Nelson’s new illustrated Bible dictionary

Freedom from arrogance.  In reality, false humility is nothing but arrogance.  It’s an attempt to influence the opinions of others.   We put ourselves down.  Secretly, we want someone else to say that we’re better than what we said.  And most of the time, someone does exactly that.  And we’re lifted up in our self-esteem.  Not to mention in the eyes of others.  Or so we think.  Truth is, oftentimes it’s no secret at all.  Most people know full well what’s going on.  And they play the game.

But Jesus?  He knows what’s going on even before the words are out of our mouths.  False humility just doesn’t fly with Him.  It’s not humility at all.

Biblical humility is not a belittling of oneself (Matt. 6:16–18; Rom. 12:3), but an exalting or praising of others, especially God and Christ (John 3:30; Phil. 2:3).

Here’s an example from the Romans passage mentioned above.

Notice that Paul talks about what we do as an act of worship.  Once again, this points us to the fact that we’re talking about something between us and God.  He also reminds us that the things we do, when we follow God’s will, aren’t following the ways of the world. In fact, God’s ways are often very much opposite of the ways of the world.  We’re following God’s good, pleasing and perfect will.

That makes being humble a very tricky situation.  Especially when we’re doing something with one of the gifts God gave us.  Just how much can we put down our efforts when we’re using a gift from God?  And by the same token, how can we build ourselves up when we’re using a gift from God?  Do you see?  It’s not about us either way.  It’s not what we have or don’t have.  What we have comes from God.  What we don’t have, we don’t need in order to fulfill our part of God’s good, pleasing and perfect will.

I feel like one of the big things is not to get in the way.  If I feel like I don’t need God, that’s a recipe for disaster.  So when I feel like I’m starting to write on my own – I stop.  On the other hand, if I feel so inadequate that even God can’t help me do something, that’s a recipe for failure.

Don’t speak negatively of yourself – how does humility fit in?

Humble people focus more on God and others than on themselves.

We’re now getting to the heart of the matter.  The issue isn’t don’t speak negatively of yourself.  The issue is to focus more on other people.  Especially on God.  That’s made very clear in the last part of our look at humility.

📖† Biblical humility is also a recognition that by ourselves we are inadequate, without dignity and worthless. Yet, because we are created in God’s image and because believers are in Christ, we have infinite worth and dignity (1 Cor. 4:6–7; 1 Pet. 1:18–19). True humility does not produce pride but gratitude. Since God is both our Creator and Redeemer, our existence and righteousness depend on Him (John 15:5; Acts 17:28; Eph. 2:8–10).  ²Youngblood, R. F., Bruce, F. F., & Harrison, R. K., Thomas Nelson Publishers (Eds.). (1995). In Nelson’s new illustrated Bible dictionary. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.

Nelson’s new illustrated Bible dictionary

Biblical humility is also a recognition that by ourselves we are inadequate, without dignity and worthless.

Of course, the key is the part about by ourselves.  That takes away thoughts of false humility and arrogance.  And while it appears to give an impression of absolute worthlessness, it really doesn’t mean that at all. The next sentence is why it’s so dangerous to take one thought out of context.

Yet, because we are created in God’s image and because believers are in Christ, we have infinite worth and dignity (1 Cor. 4:6–7; 1 Pet. 1:18–19).

And so we see, the thought of truly being worthless, for someone who’s following God and allowing Him to work in us, there’s no feelings of being useless either.

But then, the thoughts of arrogance are still out the window, because the infinite worth doesn’t come from us.  Rather, it’s from God.

True humility does not produce pride but gratitude. Since God is both our Creator and Redeemer, our existence and righteousness depend on Him (John 15:5; Acts 17:28; Eph. 2:8–10).

Ultimately, this is what we should speak of.  We should not speak negatively about ourselves.

And while we’re at it – we need to remember where we truly are. The ability to feel valuable and worthless at the same time is very much against our Western way of thinking. We’re taught from a very early age that either we’re worth something – or we aren’t. I remember being told by my own father that I was “a worthless bum and will never amount to anything”. And for so long, I believed it.

And yet, eventually I ended up in charge of a multi-million-dollar IT infrastructure and the people to run and grow it at a university. Now, I’m retired, keep two blogs going, and lead an amazing group of people in a Bible Study Class at church. But here’s the thing. The credit for being able to do all that goes to God. It’s like this: yes, I have a pretty good brain – but what I do with it, and the ability to do those things – they all come from God.

Yes, the brain is from God. But had I left it to what my father told me – I would’ve wasted it. Of course, unlike the popular thinking, we are not created equally. Everyone cannot do whatever they want, just by wanting it enough. I’ll never be a world class athlete, a pro athlete, or even a mediocre athlete. What we need to do, with God’s help, is find out what He created us to do. Then, when we go for those things, we can and will do them. And be worthless and incredibly valuable at the same time.

Don’t speak negatively of ourselves – but don’t boast either

Nor should we be boasting of ourselves, as Paul points out.

So, yes – it’s easy to forget who got us where we are. To forget that we committed our lives to God – after we’ve risen out of the ashes of our worthlessness. When we see how much things change, it’s easy to forget why.

In other words, it’s easy to boast. We need to remember:

For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do

So – if we’re really trying to follow Jesus, how can we boast about ourselves?  And how can we have false humility?  Furthermore, how can we speak negatively about ourselves?

Honestly, we can’t.  Or at least we shouldn’t.  We are, at best, doing what we promised to do when we became a Christian.  And to the extent that we succeed, all the credit and the glory goes not to us – but to God.

Conclusions: Don’t speak negatively or boast about yourself

So, why does Paul make it sound like it should be easy to walk this line between being negative about ourselves and boasting about ourselves?

Actually, he doesn’t say it’s easy at all. We tend to read it like it’s easy. But why?

As I mentioned, the catch is to be able to live with the idea that we are worthless – and valuable – at the same time. In Western cultures, this just doesn’t fit in with our insistence that there’s one best answer to every question. Therefore, when asked about our worth – we cannot bring ourselves to say both. We must pick one. Sadly, for all but the elite, our culture also tells us that we aren’t of value.

On the other hand, Eastern culture – both then and today – has no problem with this. It’s called dialectical thinking. They can live with both feelings about self-worth.

No – it’s not an easy thing to do – to walk that line between worthlessness and valuable. But the advantage they had then is that they didn’t fight against even the possibility that they could be both. And so, they could work on walking the line. On the other hand, we fight against even the existence of the line – because we believe we can’t be both – and therefore this is an impossible task.

The bottom line then is this: we must understand the words and the culture in Biblical times. In this case, it means that if we want to truly follow Jesus, and don’t want to be fighting against ourselves in the process, then we must realize that He’s not asking us to do something that can’t be done. It’s only our culture and our upbringing that tells us this is impossible.

Consider an often misused quote from Paul:

I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

This one verse, almost always pulled out with no context at all is from:

In the case of this passage, Paul was telling the reader that God gave him the strength to live through a life where he had times of plenty and times of shortage, times with friends and times alone in prison. But through God, Paul was able to be content in all those situations, and more.

✏️ 4:13 Paul’s contentment was not gained through stoic self-discipline. Instead, it was through Christ alone. In context, the word everything refers to the list in 4:11–12. In every possible circumstance, Paul could truly be content because he did not let outward circumstances determine his attitude. Christ was giving him the strength to continue with his ministry and the work of spreading the gospel whether he had plenty or was in need. Paul had complete confidence that, no matter what the circumstance, Christ would give him the strength to meet it.

This verse can be divided into two halves. The first half is, “I can do everything.” To stop there and pull the words out of context would imply the idea of self-reliance, cocky self-assuredness. That’s the kind of message we often hear from motivational speakers: “You can do anything you want if you put your mind to it.” But that’s not what the verse says. The last half reveals the source of our strength: Christ. God wants us to accomplish much for him in this world, but only through Christ. Instead of trusting our own strength and abilities, we must rely on Christ and his power.

Paul’s confident words can be spoken by every Christian. The power we receive in union with Christ is sufficient to do his will and to face the challenges that arise from our commitment to doing it. ³Barton, B., Comfort, P., Osborne, G., Taylor, L. K., & Veerman, D. (2001). Life Application New Testament Commentary (p. 862). Tyndale.

Life Application New Testament Commentary

That quote pretty much sums it up. It can be hard to not speak negatively about ourselves. It can be hard to not boast. And it can be nearly impossible for people in Western cultures to walk a line we don’t even believe exists. And yet, if we are trying to follow God’s will for our lives, then it’s not impossible.

We won’t be successful all the time. Paul never says that either. But we can learn to be content – emphasis on learn. We can also begin to feel the love, peace, and joy that Jesus promised when we follow Him.

Those things can begin in this life – with complete fulfillment in the next life.

So really – why would we want to settle for less? There are so many wonderful, awesome promises from God. Why do we not try and go for them – beginning with learning to live the kind of life discussed here?

Footnotes:

• 1
  Youngblood, R. F., Bruce, F. F., & Harrison, R. K., Thomas Nelson Publishers (Eds.). (1995). In Nelson’s new illustrated Bible dictionary. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.
• 2
  Youngblood, R. F., Bruce, F. F., & Harrison, R. K., Thomas Nelson Publishers (Eds.). (1995). In Nelson’s new illustrated Bible dictionary. Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Inc.
• 3
  Barton, B., Comfort, P., Osborne, G., Taylor, L. K., & Veerman, D. (2001). Life Application New Testament Commentary (p. 862). Tyndale.