This week Kelly Needham and I talk about how we can use discernment in the self help culture that we are saturated in.

We talk about questions like:

How do we know what messages we can trust and listen to?

How do we know what speakers and teachers are trustworthy?

How does it look, practically, to use discernment when reading self help messages, or anything, in general?

Kelly tells us to saturate ourselves in the Gospel, and in her words, to "always look for the good."

This week Alisa Childers and I dug into our modern culture and the popular ideologies that help support the self esteem gospel. We talked about ideas like pluralism, moralistic therapeutic deism, progressive Christianity, and more.

It’s my hope that this discussion will give you a better understanding of the ideologies around the self esteem gospel, why they aren’t supported by the gospel, and why the Gospel is our true solution for humanity’s struggles.

The cultural understanding of self-care falls short of Gospel-hope. It's often something people put false hope in– the Gospel’s definition of rest is the only thing that will give us peace and true rest.

Self care can become something we do to find peace and freedom on our own, which ends up with us putting ourselves in God's place.

In this episode, Emily Jensen and I talk about how caring for ourselves is good and holy, but how culture's understanding falls short and how the Gospel's answer gives us true rest.

This week on the podcast I talked with Gretchen Saffles about the popular message “you are enough.” In this episode, Gretchen and I talk about how knowing God is the only one who is enough in our place is the only true way of finding freedom from our lack of “enoughness.”

This phrase is a popular one in culture, but without a foundation in Christ, this phrase leads us to ourselves and our own efforts.

www.meaganelling.com/podcast

Our culture implies to us that loving ourselves enough will give us freedom from insecurity, but in this episode we talk about how loving God is the way we find that freedom, even though it sounds backwards. We believe that loving ourselves is not a bad thing–a God honoring thing with a proper heart posture–but that it doesn’t follow through on it’s promise to free us from insecurity.

This episode digs into what our culture says about self love and what the Bible has to say in response.

You can find Blake here on Instagram and her website.

We've spent this season talking about messages in the self esteem gospel, ones that point you to your dreams, and their lack of a biblical foundation. But in this episode, Alli and I talk about how to *biblically* pursue our dreams.

Alli mentions how playing “small” and holding back is almost a false humility, is not biblical, and how our “calling” is found in loving Jesus and telling others about him with our lives, however that looks for us as individuals.

Alli said, "He looks for people to partner with to bring his purposes to life." God is looking for people to work with, not people work apart from him. That is a primary difference between following your dreams and biblically following your dreams.

I've seen a lot of fear among Christians about how to respond, and conflict among those who do respond. I think that vast majority of people want to respond well, but there is a fear associated with it.

In this special episode of the podcast, I interview Jessica Mathisen about how we as Christians should work towards unity with each other, how to respond to recent events, and how the church should lead through difficult times.

I think my favorite thing about what Jessica said was not a list of something we should all do, like we hear a lot in culture, but the freedom of being individually led by the Holy Spirit. 

www.meaganelling.com/podcast

This week Abigail Dodds and I dug into the message “you are the hero of your story.” Abigail points women to the truth that our lives are lived fully when we worship what we’re meant to worship–Christ. The message we’re discussing today can quickly turn into a worship of self, and Abigail so kindly and gracefully directs us back to the truth.

We continue our discussion of the Self Esteem Gospel with guest Maggie Combs about the message "Follow Your Heart".

The "follow your heart" message is extremely popular, and most wouldn't think twice about disagreeing with it. But, like Maggie says, this message has "self" at the center. And if this season of the podcast has taught you anything, we know that "self" at the center will result in slavery, not freedom.

Throughout this episode, Maggie reminds us that ultimately, our desires are a good, God-given thing that have been affected by sin. As a result, we need to learn how to discern and guide our hearts to their true desire: God.

Follow this podcast here:

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Find Maggie here:

https://www.maggiecombs.com/

www.instagram.com/maggie__combs

We continue our exploration of the Self Esteem Gospel with guest Jen Oshman about the message "You Were Made For More."

Throughout this episode, Jen reminds us that we are made for more, but that "more" is found in Christ, and not in ourselves or our efforts.

I absolutely loved talking with Jen and she had incredible insight on the messages that focus on self in our culture, and how they ultimately won't last apart from Christ.

Follow this podcast here:

www.instagram.com/ofgraceandtruthpodcast

Find Jen here:

www.jenoshman.com/

www.instagram.com/jenoshman

Preorder (or order) Jen's book here