Poverty: Broken Relationship With Yourself

When I was a little boy, I learned at church that the plan of salvation included recognizing our sin, confessing, repenting, being baptized, and living the Christian life. It was presented as something easy, and for the most part, it looked to me like the adult Christians around me never struggled. We even sang a song that went “I’m in-right, out-right, up-right, down-right happy all the time. Since Jesus Christ came in and cleansed my heard from sin, I’m in-right, out-right, up-right, down-right happy all the time.” I often wondered why living the Christian life was so much more difficult than I thought it would be. 

Part of the problem, I found, was not a problem with the Christian life. The problem was within. We have been looking at the root causes of poverty. Poverty is not about not having enough money. Poverty is at its core, about broken relationship. Last week we looked at broken relationship with God. Today we are looking at another relationship, one that we honestly don’t look at much.

You probably know that when Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is, (In Matthew 22:37-40) Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

We love to preach on this, talking about loving God and loving neighbor. But Jesus makes another very subtle point. We we know we are to love our neighbor. But did you notice the degree to which he tells us to love our neighbor? Love your neighbor as yourself. Jesus mentions three relationships here: with God, with others, and with ourselves. And broken relationship with ourselves is a root cause of poverty.

There are two directions that this broken relationship with self usually takes. It either goes in the direction of pride and arrogance, when we feel we are worth more than anyone, or it does in the opposite direction, where we think we are worthless.

In the West, many, many people are guilty of pride. Pride looks like this: I am self-reliant. I don’t need God. I don’t need others. In fact, I’m pretty much better than everyone else around me. Why would I need any of them? I deserve the best seats, the best choices, the best or everything. Pride has been considered the worst of all the so-called seven deadly sins. Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities that interferes with our recognition of the grace of God. In other words, our pride leads us to believe we don’t even need God. It has even been said that all other sins arise from pride. And remember Proverbs 16:18 Pride leads to destruction, and arrogance to downfall. For people whose problem is pride, they must be aware that they will be brought low. 

James 1:9-10 goes so far as to say it this way: Believers in humble circumstances ought to take pride in their high position. But the rich should take pride in their humiliation—since they will pass away like a wild flower. All those things you have to be puffed up over — they will all fade away. None of them will last. 

But the other side of a broken relationship with ourselves is when we think we are worthless. Our culture often tells us this. Some of us came from poor neighborhoods and from poor families. Our culture says to us, “You came from nothing, and you’ll always be nothing.” In fact, there are people around us who try this as well. As soon as someone rises above those standards, they have neighbors and even family members asking, “Who do you think you are? You think you’re better than us?” They only want to drag you down. 

Maybe cultural lies have been dragging you down. You think “because I’m a woman, I am worth less than a man.” “Because I have dark skin, I’m somehow less than someone with light skin or a white person.” 

Maybe you’re filled with guilt and shame. You lived a sinful life in the past, and those memories are too real even now. You think you are worthless and can never be redeemed. Maybe you even have people telling you that as well. They know your past. How can you possibly succeed? 

Sometimes we even think, “I’m just being humble.” That may be, but humility isn’t thinking you are garbage. Humility is not thinking more of yourself than you ought to. Instead of believing the lie that you are garbage, listen to these scriptures.

In Genesis 1:27, the Bible tells us: So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. So, the point here is that God created us, male and female, in His own image. Can you imagine? God’s very own image. When God was creating everything, each time He created something, God said, “and it was good.” But God pronounced humanity “very good.” 

Or listen to the words from Psalm 139:13-14 For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.

Further, in Ephesians 2:10, we read that we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. God’s handiwork means that God crafted us by hand. But we’re not junk. Another way to say it would be that we are God’s masterpiece. If God was a painter, this would be the portrait that takes the place of highest significance. It would be the most valuable. When people come to see his artwork, you would be the piece that he saves to show last. 

So. If our relationship with ourselves is broken, how do we fix it? There are all kinds of things we can do. I would start with prayer. Pray to God that you would begin to see yourself as He sees you. Immerse yourself in His Word. I have a journal in which there are several pages dedicated to “What God thinks of Me.” I have a bookmark there, and I meditate on these truths. When I am feeling discouraged and depressed, I go to the scripture. I read, copy, and internalize it. And then I repeat. I also ask trusted friends to speak truth into my life. 

Another thing you can do to help fix a broken relationship with yourself is to forgive. Forgive others, yes, but forgive yourself. If you hold on to your sin and guilt, you are in essence saying that Jesus’ sacrifice wasn’t enough for you. So you are setting yourself above Him! So let go of the guilt. Jesus is more than enough for you. He can and will forgive you and set you free from the prison of sin.

There are many other things you can do to repair the broken relationship with yourself, but I want to mention one more. 

The last thing is to help someone else. Now, when I say help someone, don’t do for someone else what they can do for themselves. That leads to entitlement and even to dependence. But when you begin to help others, not because they can reciprocate, you can begin to realize your worth.