Healing for Inferiority Ephesians 3:14-21

The world bombards us with messages that nourish feelings of inferiority. Happiness and satisfaction are promised if we will only drive the latest car, wear the newest styles, or build up those muscles while losing unsightly pounds. If we do not guard against the onslaught of commercialism, it will drive the truth of God from our minds, and we will pursue a fruitless search for adequacy and value.

So often we look at externals to prove to ourselves and others that we’re valuable. Or we think, If only I were better-looking, richer, or smarter, I would be accepted and esteemed. It’s not wise to let others’ opinions and standards determine our feelings about ourselves; the only accurate assessment of our worth comes from looking into the eyes of the One who loved us enough to die in our place.

Paul told his readers that true significance comes from knowing and understanding the full dimensions of God’s love for them. This knowledge is our anchor when feelings of worthlessness overwhelm or failures tempt us to berate ourselves and withdraw in defeat. Notice that the Lord doesn’t say He’ll give us all the qualities and possessions we think will overcome our sense of inferiority. Instead, He promises to strengthen us “in the inner man” (v. 16).

“God is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think” (v. 20), but His method is to work from the inside out, “according to the power that works within us.” If you struggle with feelings of inferiority, ask God to heal your soul by doing a great work within.

Christ Loved Me

Anyone who does not love does not know God.

1 John 4:8

The distinguishing mark of a Christian is his confidence in Christ’s love for him and in the offering of his love to Christ. First, faith sets her seal upon the man by enabling the soul to say with the apostle, “Christ loved me and gave himself for me.”¹ Then love gives the countersign and stamps upon the heart gratitude and love to Jesus in return. “We love because he first loved us.”²

In those grand old ages, which are the heroic period of the Christian religion, this double mark was clearly seen in all believers in Jesus; they were men who knew the love of Christ and rested upon it as a man leans upon a staff whose trustiness he has proved. The love that they felt toward the Lord was not a quiet emotion that they hid within themselves in the secret place of their souls and that they only spoke about in private or when they met on the first day of the week and sang hymns in honor of Christ Jesus the crucified; it was a passion with them of such a vehement and all-consuming energy that it was visible in all their actions, evident in their conversation, and seen in their eyes, even in their casual glances. Love for Jesus was a flame that fed upon the core and heart of their being and therefore by its own force burned its way into their demeanor and shone there. Zeal for the glory of King Jesus was the seal and mark of all genuine Christians.

Because of their dependence upon Christ’s love they dared much, and because of their love for Christ they did much, and it is the same now. The children of God are ruled in their inmost powers by love. The love of Christ constrains them; they rejoice that divine love is set upon them, they feel it shed abroad in their hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given to them, and then by force of gratitude they love the Savior with a pure and fervent heart.

My reader, do you love Him? Before you sleep, give an honest answer to this weighty question!

¹Galatians 2:20 ²1 John 4:19