When you have low selfesteem, you do not value yourself and it is hard to believe who you are in Christ.

It is easier to believe the lies of Satan than the truth of God. In fact, our unbelief keeps us in bondage to the lies of the enemy of our souls.

We become a slave to sin and can’t receive the love that God longs to give us.

I know, because I spent years trying to receive his love while still believing the lies of satan. But God’s word says that if you seek Him with all your heart, you will find Him (Jeremiah 29:13).

That was the first scripture I memorized in 1994 after a devastating time in my life. Later, when I found myself crying out to God in my prayer closet because he seemed so far away, He spoke to my heart that he wanted me to be tenacious. Little did I know how important tenacity would be in my pursuit of truth and a love relationship with Christ.

That was in 1998, and I was in Bible College questioning whether God really called me to be there. I saw His presences on so many people and yet I felt like I was behind a brick wall.

I couldn’t receive his love and it hurt so badly. At that point, I began Christian counseling in a class called “cleansing streams.”

Later I took classes under “mama hugs” for healing the wounded heart. In 2002, I went to Safe Haven Ministry for more counseling. The main sin addressed during these sessions was unbelief.

The list goes on and on of the many retreats and avenues I’ve sought to be free. All this time, I feel I have loved God but haven’t believed who I am in Christ.

God told me He would be my husband but he seemed so distant. I felt so lonely and rejected because I couldn’t feel his presence. I began dating again in 2008 and because my root sin problem was rejection, I got into codependent relationships.

God used these relationships to bring me once again to counseling. I was looking for security, value and acceptance from another human being.

In God alone will we find the security and acceptance we long for and seek. What I needed was transformation by a renewed mind. The following three scriptures support this need:

Romans 12: 1-2: “Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God — this is your spiritual (reasonable) act of worship.

“Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — His good, pleasing and perfect will.”

2 Corinthians 3:16-18: “But whenever anyone turns to the Lord (believes), the veil (that covers their heart) is taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

“And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.”

Ephesians 4:17-18: “So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts.”

Webster defines tenacious as the quality of holding fast, standing firm, persistent, unwilling to quit, resign or let go.

John 7:37-39: “On the last and greatest day of the feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, ‘If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him.’”

By this, he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time, the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.

John 8: “To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, ‘If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.’”

“So if the Son sets you free (from sin and unbelief), you will be free indeed.”

This unbelief began when I was a baby. Long before I was capable of any decision making process, my heart believed I was a throw-away, an outcast even a mother didn’t want. The lie was deeply buried in my soul and it has taken the persistent work of a loving Savior to free me from this bondage.

Low self-esteem develops when you look to others to give you praise and approval. You desire to be valued by man when the only true affirmation must come from God alone.

Today, I had an encounter with the Lord. I asked for forgiveness of my unbelief. I repented for turning to others for the love and acceptance I can only get from God.

I asked God to forgive me for seeking value, security and esteem from anyone but him and I ask him to remove the veil from my heart that has been there because of my unbelief.

I picked up my Bible and started reading the scriptures and the experience was so different from previous times.

I am reading with new eyes and a new heart. I believe he loves me and the word is His love letter to me. I thank God that He is tenacious and that he developed that characteristic in my heart.

I praise Him that His word is faithful and true and when we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him.

If you have this desire in your heart to know Him, don’t give up. He loves you and waiting for you to believe so He can lift the veil.