How to Strengthen Our Faith in the Absence of Self-worth

My wife Sarah recently got water baptised for the first time. She came to saving faith in the Anglican Church and, as a teenager, gave her life to Jesus during her Confirmation. Until this year, she always felt that this was her confession of faith moment, and she had never previously been drawn to the idea of reconfirming her faith in Jesus through water baptism. Something changed in her heart over time, and she decided that she was ready to get water baptised. The days and evening before her water baptism were filled with immense anxiety. She struggled with the notion that she was not worthy of God’s love. Her perceived unworthiness before God caused her to even consider not being water baptised.

On the day of her water baptism, she gave her testimony about the anxiety she had been feeling leading up to it. Much to her surprise, over a dozen people in our congregation approached her afterwards and confessed that they too had felt the same way. At some stage, they all felt or still felt unworthy of God and His love. I have felt it too, and on occasion, I still feel it. So too does my wife, and as I have come to realise, so do many of us.

We are not alone when we feel unworthy of God. There is a Roman Centurion in the bible, who also felt unworthy of God.

Now a centurion’s slave, who was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die. When he heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders to Him, asking Him to come and save the life of his slave. When they came to Jesus, they strongly urged Him, saying, “He is worthy for You to grant this to him; for he loves our nation, and it was he who built us our synagogue.” Now Jesus started on His way with them; but already, when He was not yet far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to enter under my roof; for that reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You; but just say the word, and my servant shall be healed. For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under myself; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Jesus heard this, He was amazed at him and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, “I say to you, not even in Israel have I found such great faith.” And when those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health. – Luke 7:2-10 NASB

The Centurion was a man of impressive faith, whose trust and confidence in Jesus was commended, but ironically, his self-assessed absence of worthiness before Jesus, combined with his lack of faith that Jesus loved and accepted him as he was, prevented him from experiencing a relationship with Him to the fullest.

This is a dilemma that we all face as Christians. How do we strengthen our faith in the absence of self-worth? Because if one feels unworthy of God and His love, how does one have the trust and confidence that God accepts them just as they are and that, in His eyes, they are enough?

As we explore this narrative together, we will learn from the centurion’s example that there are four things that we can do to strengthen our faith in the absence of self-worth.

1. Avoid overgeneralisation and labelling

2. Embrace humility over validation

3. Avoid transferring our views and opinions about ourselves onto God and others

4. Practice positive affirmation

The first way that we can strengthen our faith in the absence of self-worth is by avoiding overgeneralisation and labelling.

1. Avoid Overgeneralisation and Labelling

To avoid doing something, it is first helpful to know more about what we are trying to avoid doing. Let us start by defining overgeneralisation.

An overgeneralisation is the broad application of observations made from a limited or singular instance to all instances.

An example of this is when someone asks a few people out on a date and is rejected by all of them. They then assume that because these people rejected them, everyone will reject them and thus they stop asking people out on dates.

The Roman Centurion assumes that because the Jewish people he has met to date follow his commands and requests, that all Jewish people will, including Jesus. By doing so, the Centurion makes a gross overgeneralisation. As we will soon see, he is also prone to labelling.

Labelling is the application of a fixed categorization based on observed behaviours or actions.

For example, a child might behave in a way that is disappointing to the parent. Instead of labelling the behaviour, they label the child a disappointment instead. Sadly, if you say this to a child often enough, they will believe the label is true and think that they are a disappointment.

Another example is someone makes a mistake or a series of mistakes, instead of labelling the actions, they label themselves a failure. Again, if they say this to themselves often enough, they will believe the label is true and think that they are a failure.

The problem with overgeneralisation and labelling is that they are oversimplifications designed to help our brains deal with the complexities of reality, which inadvertently prevents us from seeing the totality of reality. Simply put, they box us into fixed mindsets about ourselves and others. Thankfully, we can challenge these mindsets and change them over time.

As Jesus is walking towards the Centurion’s house, we see that he re-evaluates his overgeneralisation and realises that Jesus is different from other Jews because He is the Messiah.

As a Roman Centurion, he would only ever use the term ‘Lord’ to describe Caeser, because a Roman citizen had to say that Caeser is Lord. But he uses the term ‘Lord’ to address Jesus when he says “Lord, do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to enter under my roof.”

This re-evaluation of who Jesus was, caused the Centurion to see an important truth, that Jesus has command over life itself, and just as his slaves respond to his commands, so too does all of life to the commands of Jesus.[i]

This level of faith astounded Jesus and drew commendation. However, the Centurion’s labelling of himself, also weakened his faith and denied him an encounter with Jesus.

This re-evaluation strengthened his faith in one area but weakened it in another. Because it caused him to re-evaluate his self-worth before Jesus from worthy to unworthy. Both labels are opposites, black and white and lacking in any dimension of grey.

One can feel unworthy, but feeling unworthy does not imply that they are unworthy.

Because he considered himself unworthy of being in the presence of Jesus, he missed experiencing Jesus to the fullest. We know this because at no point in the Lukan account, did the Centurion meet with Jesus. All their interactions were through proxies. What a Christian alive today would not give to receive an encounter with the living breathing Jesus? Yet, the Roman Centurion passed on this because he labelled himself unworthy.

We do the same thing when we engage in overgeneralisation and labelling. It prevents us from seeing God how He truly is and from seeing ourselves how God sees us. This weakens our faith and prevents us from experiencing life in relationship with Jesus to the fullest.

The labels worthy and unworthy are valuation statements. As we will soon explore, the Centurion was defining these labels based on a combination of external and internal validation. Both of which can be a volatile means of defining our self-worth.

As Christians, God is all the validation we will ever need because, in His eyes, we are worthy, valuable, and enough.

To live this truth out in our lives, we need to strengthen our faith further by doing something else.

2. Embrace Humility Over Validation

The Centurion had no shortage of external validation. The Jewish Elders came to Jesus with a glowing report of his worthiness before Him. This is unsurprising, as they credited him with building their Synagogue. Why wouldn’t they sing his praises?

Which highlights the problem of external validation. Seeking external validation is like seeking cheerleaders to pump us up before a big game, they help us to feel successful but not be successful. They are there when we win, but when we lose, they do not hold the keys to help us succeed. If all we have in our life are cheerleaders who encourage who we are now, then who do we have that can help us grow and become the best version of ourselves.

By contrast, internal validation is not dependent on the opinions of others and can remain regardless of circumstances. We become our own cheerleader whenever we need it.

The problem with internal validation, is that if it is not planted in the fertile soil of humility and sober mindedness, we risk cultivating pride and arrogance.

The centurion made this mistake initially. His internal validation proudly boasted of his performance as a Centurion and the power and influence he wielded. We see this by his commissioning of the Jewish elders to bring Jesus to him, and the undercurrent of expectation that Jesus will come, simply because he requested it. We also see it when his friends relay his self-assessment to Jesus as they intercept Him on the way to the Centurion’s house.

We look for external and internal validation to help affirm our sense of self-worth and value. Unfortunately, when one has a negative view of their self-worth and value, it can be hard to manifest a positive view. The centurion experienced this when he went from feeling worthy to unworthy to be in Jesus’ presence. This is why embracing humility is important.

“Humility is a way of approaching ourselves, other people, and the world around us with a sense of enoughness—an unconditional worth and value—that opens us to the world as it is.” – Daryl Van Tongeren [ii]

When we embrace humility in this manner, it allows us to see things differently. Firstly, it helps us to see that we are enough just as we are, especially in God’s eyes and that God is enough for us. When we accept these two truths, the need for external validation through people and actions is no longer needed, and our need for internal validation is replaced by something far stronger and more powerful, Jesus.

Embracing humility over validation significantly strengthens our faith, but it will be challenging to do unless we break ourselves free of transference.

3. Avoid Transferring Our Views and Opinions About Ourselves onto God and Others

As I mentioned earlier, we seek validation to affirm our sense of self-worth and value, but our worth and value are not decided by us but by God.

But what happens if we believe ourselves to be unworthy of God's love? The result is that we believe we have no value from God, and as we just discussed, we seek validation elsewhere.

The issue underpinning this problem is transference. We are transferring our thoughts and feelings about ourselves, in this case those about our self-worth, onto God. We assume that because we think and feel that we are unworthy then so too does God.

It is not surprising that we do this. After all, we do this to various people in our lives. For example, a husband tells his wife that she is beautiful and that he loves her, but she disqualifies this positive affirmation and assumes he is lying or simply just saying it to be nice because she does not believe she is beautiful or loveable.

Or a student gets an A on an assignment and their parents are proud of them, but they dismiss their parent’s response, because they believe that they, and what they do, is never good enough, and thus they continue striving to be good enough.

At the heart of disqualification of the positive, is the idea that our negative views about ourselves are true and that others believe them too. If they do not, there must be an alternate explanation as to why they are saying them.

It is unrealistic to assume that everyone else holds the same negative views about us as we do. After all, not everyone we meet knows anything about us. To most people, we are a blank canvas, but to God, we are a blank canvas that He is turning into a masterpiece. For us to see that, we need to avoid transferring our views about ourselves onto God and instead start to see ourselves the way He see us. Loved, valued, cared for, and enough.

To do that, we need to challenge our mindsets about ourselves. If we believe that we are unworthy, or lacking in value, we need to evaluate the evidence and challenge our mindsets. If we do, we can strengthen our faith and grow our sense of self-worth. To do this, we need to practice positive affirmation.

4. Practice Positive Affirmation

We can strengthen our sense of self-worth through positive affirmation. For example, if we make a mistake, instead of seeing it as a pattern of failure, we can focus on the changes we are making to improve and the successes that we have made.

We can also strengthen our faith through positive affirmation, and in turn our sense of self-worth by recalling moments that God has helped us in the past, or by remembering verses that remind us of His love for us.

If you, like me, like my wife, and like many others need to strengthen your faith and sense of self-worth from time-to-time, these four positive affirmation statements and bible verses will help you. Do not be afraid to read them aloud.

I Am Loved by God

But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. –  Romans 5:8 NASB

We were enough for God before we even acknowledged in our hearts who Jesus is. His love for us, was not dependent on us first loving Him or seeing our need for Him. He loved us despite our imperfections and flaws because in His eyes we are enough. Because of this, we have value and worth beyond measure.

I Am Valued by God

Are five sparrows not sold for two assaria? And yet not one of them has gone unnoticed in the sight of God. But even the hairs of your head are all counted. Do not fear; you are more valuable than a great number of sparrows.  – Luke 12:6-7 NASB

I do not know the number of hairs on my head, but I do know that it has been progressively getting smaller as I get older. The truth is I don’t want to know, which is why I shave my head most mornings.

Someone who does know the exact number of hairs on my head is God. Because that is how much He values every one of us. There is no detail, no matter how seemingly small and insignificant it might seem to us, that he does not know about us. He values and cares for every one of us the same, because in His eyes we are enough and are worthy of His love

I Am Cared for by God

Having cast all your anxiety on Him, because He cares about you. – 1 Peter 5:7 NASB

Some truths in the bible require abstraction from the verse to see them clearly, which makes this verse a real gem. Because it clearly tells us an invaluable truth: “He cares about you.” 

This is why we can cast our cares and anxieties on to Him because He cares about us and wants to help us by changing how we see ourselves and reality, and by providing solutions to our problems.

And These Truths Will Never Change

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today, and forever. – Hebrews 13:8 NASB

How loved, valued and cared for we are by God never changes. We are loved, valued and cared for by Jesus, the same amount, yesterday, today and forever. Nothing we have done in the past, present or future will ever change how loved, valued and cared for by Him we are. We were always enough in His eyes, and we will always be enough in His eyes.

Summary

Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. – Romans 8:1 NASB

This verse is one of my favourites and It speaks to the truth that God doesn’t condemn those who are in Christ Jesus, so why should they condemn themselves. There is no place in our hearts for self-recrimination through guilt and shame. All this does is destroy our sense of self-worth and makes us feel unworthy before God and others. As we have seen, we need to practice strengthening our faith in the absence of self-worth. We can do that by doing the following:

1. Avoid overgeneralisation and labelling

2. Embrace humility over validation

3. Avoid transferring our views and opinions about ourselves onto God and others

4. Practice positive affirmation

Reflection

1. What is one example in your life where overgeneralisations or labelling is preventing you from seeing God clearly, or seeing yourself the way God sees you?

2. How could avoiding overgeneralisation or labelling strengthen your faith and sense of self-worth?

3. What sources of validation in your life, either external or internal, are reinforcing the idea that you are not enough, and how would turning away from them strengthen your faith and sense of self-worth?

4. What negative opinions about yourself are you transferring onto God and how can you start challenging these opinions?

Prayer

Father God, help me to see how my thoughts are weakening my faith and sense of self-worth. I'm willing to open my heart to try something new and to receive from you a clearer vision of reality.

Affirmation

My thoughts are neither bad nor good, they are simply thoughts generated by a mind that was created by God to generate lots of thoughts.

Action

Each morning try spending 60 seconds staring into the mirror asking God to show you what He sees when He looks at you. Although this can be both a rewarding and challenging exercise, in my experience its one that leads to greater vitality.

[i] Edwards, James R. The Gospel According to Luke. Pillar New Testament Commentary. La Vergne: IVP, 2020.

[ii] Van Tongeren, Daryl. Humble: Free Yourself from the Traps of a Narcissistic World. Welbeck Balance, 2022.