I have many favorite Bible teachers. Some of them happen to be women (and moms), such as Jen Wilkin.
Do yourself a big favor and listen to (or read) this podcast entitled, “The Freeing Reality that You Are Not Enough.” It’s available here:
https://www.crossway.org/articles/podcast-the-freeing-reality-that-you-are-not-enough-jen-wilkin/
This presentation is packed with biblical truth. And you need not be female to benefit.
Here’s an overview:
What Christian Women Often Lack
The Lens of Self-Worth and Identity
A Challenge Facing Christian Women
How Fear and Love Can Coexist
Two Extreme Views of God
The Effect of Earthly Fathers
To the Fatherless Woman
God’s Infinite Nature
Sin’s Effect on Our Limits
Knowing Our Limits
Our Desire for Control
God’s Sovereignty
Explaining God’s Sovereignty to Someone Struggling
Let me say this again: you need not be female to benefit from Jen’s teaching.
The section on “The Lens of Self-Worth and Identity” applies to all of us. Here’s what she says:
“What we all want to believe is that we’re enough. But what the Gospel tells us is that apart from Christ we’re not enough. And in fact, even once we become believers our enough-ness is only rooted in the finished work of Christ. But when we have that sense of, Maybe everyone is going to figure out that I’m a fraud or, Maybe everyone is going to find out that I’m not everything that I put myself out there to be, we’re right. We’re not enough. We can’t do everything that we should do to please the Lord. By the power of the Spirit we can grow in our ability to do so as believers, but the culture wants to tell us, No, you’re enough. You’re good. You do you. Live your truth. But the Bible is saying something radically different. It’s saying, There is a God. He is seated in the heavens enthroned between the cherubim. Because he is your origin, you are obligated to him. You’re obligated to obey him. You’re obligated to worship him. For the believer it moves from obligation to joy because we recognize the truth of it. But to the unbeliever it’s like, Why would I worship something outside of myself?”
“Self-worship and self-loathing, ironically, are always holding hands with one another. Both of them involve self-focus. Women spend a lot of time self-loathing. You can tell from the way that goods and services are marketed to us. Messages that they are enough are very appealing to them. It’s important as believers for us to come to the Scriptures and say, Wait a minute. If I am an image-bearer of the God who sits enthroned between the cherubim, then that’s a different way of understanding my enough-ness, so to speak, than what the world is trying to tell me.”
Wow. Meditate on that for a while.
The Bible’s teaching on self-image, self-worth, and identity is indeed “radically different” than the secular worldview.
This is a profound and life-changing message that we all need to hear. I sure do.
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