Psalm 139:14 – ”I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.”
How can we teach our children Christ-centred self-worth?The bible tells us that self-worth is given to us from God. He provides us with the strength and all that we need to live a godly life (2 Peter 1:3). He says we are fearfully and wonderfully made (Psalm 139:14) and he says we have power, love and a sound-mind through Him (2 Timothy 1:7).
Self-esteem is directly related to our beliefs about ourselves, and so, for our children, it is how they view themselves or how they believe others’ view them. Beliefs based on others’ praise may vary from day to day and person to person, but God’s views about us remain constant.
If we are not giving our children Christ-centred self-worth, we are invariably leaving them open to loosing any self-esteem they have. Because ultimately, we are nothing by our own power (2 Corinthians 3:5), so if we depend on our own self-worth, it will fail us. Therefore for a child to have a christian self-concept, they must see themselves from God’s viewpoint. They need to define their self-worth through God’s eyes.
As mums, it is our responsibility to show our children what Christ-centred self-worth means. We must spend time encouraging them and magnifying their strengths rather than focusing on the negatives. Ultimately, we must remind them of their value to Jesus so that as they grasp that their worth is rooted in their relationship with God and what God says about them, they’ll truly develop positive self-esteem which will not be subject to whether they receive praise or not.
