Don Matzat

This is one of the most delightfully subversive and counter-cultural books you'll ever read. Most people in Western culture today are familiar with the basic tenets of psychology, and one of its ideas that has infiltrated our mindset is that we ought to have high self esteem. Teachers teach it; the educational system fosters it; parents try to impart it; therapists try to promote it. But what if this isn't the case? What if our attempts to raise our personal self esteem and build it in our children will only keep us in our continual cycles of depression, anger, futility, frustration, and confusion? What if the only way to live a truly joyful life is to reject self and look to something external for the answers that really work?

This is the premise of Christ Esteem by Don Matzat. Instead of looking within for our sense of worth and wholeness, we need to reject ourselves, recognizing our depravity, and look outward to Christ. We don't need to just dig deeper within ourselves to find the happiness and fullness of life we have been craving. Deep down we all know we are unworthy, and that is why we have to work so hard to convince ourselves we are good. But merely repeating a mantra about our goodness ("Every day in every way I am getting better" is one example Matzat cites) doesn't make it true. It just makes us self deceived.

Interestingly, Dr. Victor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who survived the horrors of a concentration camp in Nazi Germany, also taught a theory of self detachment. But the only thing he could offer to attach oneself to in place of the self is "meaningful activities and other people." Matzat argues that if Frankl could convince people to reject the self in favor of such a colorless and vague alternative, shouldn't Christians be eager to reject themselves and look to Christ?

We don't, though, and it's because we don't recognize our true condition as depraved sinners. It really is true that nothing good dwells in us. For the Christian, we have died and our life is hidden with Christ in God (Colossians 3). The incredible import of this passage is that we no longer have to seek to protect our egos and serve our self image. We are free from that, free to love Christ and esteem Him as He deserves. We will never fully appreciate Christ unless we see ourselves for what we really are.

The New Age doctrine of positive thinking is directly antithetical to Scripture, which exposes our sin and reveals our desperate need for a Savior. Self esteem, whether high or low, is just another word for sinful pride and obsession with self. We will never be satisfied until we stop trying to build up our opinion of ourselves, agree with God that we are deserving of death, and rejoice in the perfection of Jesus Christ, who has purchased us and imparted to us His own righteousness. If I can look within and see any spar of hope, however small, I will cling to that instead of to Christ... and I will be self deceived.

I have been walking through this book with a friend since March, and it has been so pivotal in my growth and understanding of what the Bible really teaches about self image. So many of my unthinking assumptions have been shattered, and I have gained so much clarity by prayerfully considering the biblical insights Matzat shares. I know many of the details have escaped me over the months, and I will certainly be rereading this book and recommending it highly to every Christian I know. We will never find the answers within. Only when we reject the self esteem teaching of secular psychology and esteem Christ instead will we know real joy, peace, and freedom. And I'm thankful to have learned this.… (mehr)