This is Part 3 of the series titled, “Self-Esteem: A Well Groomed Lie.” In part one we went over the definition of self-esteem and covered the first three points of the definition in contrast to God’s word. In part two we finished the final point of self-esteem and I told you a story about Mrs. Thirsty. I ended by saying that self-esteem is a clever way of disguising sinful and destructive pride. If you missed the first two parts of this series, please go back and listen to them before you listen to this concluding part. What Self-Esteem Really Means Let’s summarize the definition of self-esteem again since we are going to address the sin connected with it. Self-esteem is the idea that I am able to competently deal with the challenges of life and that I think it is natural for me deserve success, achievement, fulfillment, and happiness. The simple way of defining self-esteem is thinking I am awesome at dealing with life, and I deserve all the good things coming to me. Now let’s take a look at the first and most basic definition of “pride” according to Merriam Webster’s dictionary. “Pride is a feeling that you respect yourself and deserve to be respected by others.” You see what I did there? Pride and self-esteem have the same basic meaning. I am tempted to go off on a rant about the ambiguity of the English language and how we use the word pride to mean different things. When your child does something well, you say you are “proud” of them, but that isn’t the same kind of pride we are talking about. But I will refrain from my rant and simply say that the word pride in the bible is never in reference to feeling joy on the behalf of others, the way we use it in English. What The Bible Says About Pride When pride is mentioned in the bible, it is always in reference to respecting yourself, and is used alongside of words like haughty and wicked when talking about individuals. The same word is also used in Hebrew to denote God’s majesty and splendor, but it is not used in this way towards the individual person (aside from God). If we look through the book of Proverbs we can get an accurate idea about God’s feelings toward pride: “The fear of the Lord is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way and the perverse mouth I hate.” Proverbs 8:13 “Where pride comes, then comes shame; But with the humble is wisdom.” Proverbs 11:2 “By pride comes nothing but strife, but with the well-advised is wisdom.” Proverbs 13:10 “In the mouth of the fool is a rod of pride. but the lips of the wise will preserve them.” Proverbs 14:3 “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18 “A proud and haughty man – “Scoffer” is his name; He acts with arrogant pride.” Proverbs 21:24 “A man’s pride will bring him low, But the humble in spirit will retain honor.” Proverbs 29:23 You get the idea, pride is bad, sinful, evil behavior, and it is in stark contrast to wisdom, humility, and honor. I Feel Like I’m Going To Throw Up I’m going to tell you straight out, when God finally opened my eyes to the fact that my “low self-esteem” was a clever device satan used to blind me to my own pride I was shocked. I remember feeling sick to my stomach. But the word of God tells us straight out that pride is deceptive, “The pride of your heart has deceived you, You who dwell in the clefts of the rock, Whose habitation is high; You who say in your heart, ‘Who will bring me to the ground?’” (Obadiah 1:3). When we operate out of the pridefulness of self-esteem we place ourself on the high places, believing that no one else can determine how good or bad we are. That no one else can determine our worth. We saw in Proverbs that one of the swiftest paths to destructions is through pride. That is why satan has been so clever to disguise pride with the concept of self-esteem. Now What? But that isn’t the end of this story. You may be thinking, well what good thing can replace the evil concept of prideful self-esteem in my life?