pGod loves you so much that He gave His only Son to save you.: To save you from going through this life lost, directionless, joyless, and unfulfilled. To save you from spending the next life lost and without the joys of heaven He wants you to share. That’s how highly God values you. So when you keep putting yourself down, you’re rejecting His opinion of you. And to disagree with God is to make yourself equal with Him, or worse, put your opinion above His. Maybe you never thought about it like that before. God doesn’t expect us to be perfect when we come to Him. We can approach Him just as we are, and He accepts us just as we are. Then He can begin His amazing work of transformation in us. If God values us so highly, we can confidently value ourselves. When you refuse to accept God’s overwhelming love for you, it’s very difficult to love others or accept that they love you. You become skilled at tuning out compliments and picking up on criticism, because it confirms the negative opinion you have of yourself. As a result, you distance yourself from people and end up lonely without ever knowing why. Maybe your family failed you, or your friends betrayed you. You may feel like ‘damaged goods’, and seek escape in addictions, or affairs, or a lifestyle of ritual accomplishment. But it doesn’t work. Only when you accept that God loves you unconditionally, and decide to love yourself, will you have love to give to others./p
pWhat Now?br /
That angry voice in your head that tells you 'you're making no progress', 'you're being stupid', 'you'll never get better'? Ask God to help you focus on His voice instead./p