When We Feel Inferior – Dr. Charles Stanley

Do you have trouble accepting God’s love due to feelings of inferiority? If you know the Lord, He loves you and views you as His workmanship, a precious work of art. Don’t let your feelings block the beauty of that truth. Remind yourself of God’s great love.

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In touch, the teaching ministry of Doctor Charles Stanley, reaching the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ.
On in touch when we feel inferior.
One of the greatest barriers in our life to achievements to relationships, good relationships, or the real genuine contentment in life is what we feel about ourselves.
And those feelings can either be very helpful or they can be absolutely devastating that somebody might say, well, what I feel about myself doesn’t make any difference.
What you feel about yourself makes all the difference in the world because listen to this.
You will act out in life what you feel about yourself. You can’t do otherwise.
What you feel about yourself is the way you’re gonna act out in life.
When a person has feelings such as feelings of inferiority, they’re going to affect everything about your life.
They’re going to affect you on your job, in your home, with your children, with your friends, things that you’d like to accomplish, places that you’d like to go.
It’s going to affect every single area of your life. Feelings of inferiority are absolutely devastating.
And what I wanna do in this message is talk about just that.
The title of this message is the source of our strength when we have feelings of inferiority.
Notice I didn’t say when we are inferior, but when we have feelings of inferiority.
Now there are lots of verses of scripture, but I want you to turn, first of all, to ephesians chapter 2, one verse of scripture in this passage, and that’s verse 10.
Because in this passage, you’ll recall that Paul has described what is absolutely essential to our salvation.
He’s talked about the condition we were in, dead, and I trust passes, and sins.
And was going on in our life before Christ came into our life and then how he was saved by the grace of god.
Then if you’ll notice, if you will, in verse 10, what he says.
He says for we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which god prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
There is emotional baggage.
That people carry in their life, don’t even realize they carry it, and all of their life, it is a detriment.
It is a handicap. It it is it is an obstacle to what god wants them to become, what god wants to achieve and to accomplish in that person’s life.
So if I should ask you this morning, have you ever had any feelings of of being inferior?
More than likely, most of us would say, well, maybe somewhere out there, some of us would say, oh, yes, I have.
And some would say, not only have I had them, I still feel that way.
I want us to look for just a moment, and then we’re coming to the passage toward the end, but I want us to look at the source of this and begin by simply saying this.
That one of the sources of our feelings of inferiority, which means feeling less than feeling that we don’t measure up feeling that we are poor quality or maybe that we have been rejected.
That is There’s this feeling of less than that comes with feelings of being inferior.
That some of those things come, first of all, uh, from our early childhood.
Let me say this right up front, no child was ever born with feelings of impurity.
No child was ever born with feelings of impurity. Children learn to feel inferior.
And you know where they learn it?
They have to get it from somewhere and they have to get it from somebody.
And most children learn to feel inferior from their parents or someone in those early ages of their life.
Most of the time, they feel it at home.
For example, A parent will say, well, you are a mistake.
We didn’t want you in a way. You just get in the way.
You’re not gonna ever amount anything. All that says is poor quality. I’m poor quality. I don’t fit.
I I don’t measure up. I I I just don’t belong, and so a person has a feeling of not measuring up poor quality of personhood and that somehow they just there’s something missing in their life.
A second way is comparisons. And so if you’ve had brothers and sisters and your family more than likely, some of you may have felt.
Now I know my mom and dad love me. He’s the favorite. She’s the favorite.
And oftentimes, parents will say, well, now, you know, if you were like your brother, devastating.
It says you’re less than. You don’t measure up poor quality. Something’s missing. I just don’t have it altogether.
Somehow just can’t measure up because my mother doesn’t think I measure up.
My father doesn’t think I measure up. And some parents tried to live their lives through their children.
And that’s why they pushed them and pushed them and pushed them.
And oftentimes, the mother to dress them up and make them look like a queen all the time because she never felt like one.
And not feeling like one now, she’s just trying to push her daughter on.
Sometimes they don’t even let kids grow up. They just push them from about 6 to adulthood.
Then they wonder how the kids get so frustrated and messed up in life because mom shoved the tooth far.
Fall to push him too far.
Listen, Roy, when I was down, I was out on the feeling, yeah, I was always there.
Maybe this kid could care less about sports. But father’s pushing and shoving.
Well, if you were well, like your dad, who wants to be like that kind of a dad to begin with?
And so What happens is either by verbal criticism or by by verbal comparison, a child, learns very early in life to feel inferior.
Now notice I didn’t say a child becomes inferior. I said feel inferior.
There’s a third way I think children pick up on this, and this is the circumstances of their life.
And so I’ll give you a few personal examples.
When I was coming along, my mom and I, my father died early as I mentioned before when I was about nine months of age.
And so she and I had to move around and And oftentimes, we lived in One Room Basement Apartments.
And I’ll never forget this young lady that young girl.
Uh, I was just very young then, 1st and second grade and so forth.
And and, um, got a little older. I had noticed her and been noticing her a while.
And so I want to date her.
Well, this time, my mother and I were living in a basement apartment They belonged to her father, and they had a real nice house right next door.
What do you think her mother said? You’re not gonna date that Charles Stanley.
He lives in the basement. What she said was, he’s less than. He doesn’t measure up.
He doesn’t fit. He’s not good enough because you see, he is of inferior quality.
We live up here on the main street.
He lives down that one room of basement, so he he doesn’t measure up.
Well, that’s not the only basement she and I lived in.
And so when I grew up, we kept moving around and, uh, lived in some other basement apartments.
And so what did I feel?
Well, I learned very early that, If you live in the basement, you’re less than.
So I learned that where I lived, so to determine what I was like.
And if you lived in 17 different places in 16 years like I did, you really got messed up in your thinking because none of them are really nice places.
Couldn’t afford that. And so part of my identity got wrapped up in where I lived and where I live wasn’t very good.
It’s best we could afford, but it wasn’t very good. Compared to somebody else.
And then one of the worst things that happened was my mother made me wear a short pants.
When I was in the 6th grade. I was the only person in 6th grade with short pants.
I mean, short pants. I don’t mean none of these fancy uh, eyes odd and polo kind of pants you wear today.
I’m talking about this plain old short pants. 6th grade.
The only person in 6th grade is short pants. What did that say?
It said to me, somehow, I called in to all my friends. I was far less than.
Believe me, And, uh, they’d look at me and laugh at me and skinny me and this and the other, and It did something to me, made me feel less than, then measure up.
I wasn’t dressed right like everybody else.
And so what happens in whatever situation may be children grow up with verbal criticism, verbal comparisons, and situations and conditions in their light that speak to them and say, you’re less than.
You just don’t measure up. But there’s a wonderful answer to all these things.
It’s right here in this 10th verse.
So I want you to go back if you will to this 10th verse. Notice what he says.
He says for we are his workmanship.
Created in Christ Jesus for good works, which god prepared beforehand that you and I should walk in them.
Now I want you to look at this. He says, we are his what? Workmanship, who’s workmanship?
God’s workmanship, which god prepared when beforehand that we should walk in them now.
So I wanna say three things primarily here that I think if you’ll listen to and apply to your heart, it’ll make a difference.
It it can start making a difference before you walk out of this place.
What is the answer to the to this?
Now you can read all kinds of books, magazines about pulling yourself up via on bootstraps and as you heard and and doing this and doing that.
He he this is a book where I hit. I’ll tell you how to get rid of this.
You don’t need, but one book.
The first thing the the first step to healing of with a feelings of inferiority as a believer taking that you already are saved because that’s step number 1.
But having put that behind us, what is the first step?
The first step is to get god’s viewpoint of me To get god’s viewpoint to you, what’s his viewpoint?
Here’s his viewpoint. He says you are his workmanship now.
Let me ask you, have you believed everything I’ve told you so far, say, man? Alright.
Now that’s just what I’ve told you from my observations. Now I wanna tell you what god says.
God says you are his workmanship, and that word means masterpiece.
Now you say, don’t give me that I’m not a masterpiece. You’re not?
Are you are you saying that god made a mistake when he made you? No. He didn’t.
Well, usually, I don’t look as good compared to whom. You see?
God made all of us unique, different. And the wonderful thing is listen.
The wonderful thing is that he made us all different.
So he didn’t make he didn’t make a long list, a long line of folks like you.
Then you may have some reason to compare yourself, but since he made you uniquely different, There’s nobody you can compare yourself with because god didn’t intend anybody to be like you.
You’re his work ship. That is he created you.
Now you said, well, look, what about these people who have deformed his and all kinds of problems? Listen.
He says he created us for his purpose.
Now his purpose in one person’s life may be a short life and a difficult life, and if somebody else could be totally different, He made us for his purpose.
Therefore, it can’t compare myself with anybody else. He says you are his workmanship.
God created you uniquely you for his purpose.
And if you let the world’s bombardment of all of its commercialism, drive out of your heart and mind, god’s viewpoint of you, you’re gonna be trapped, and you’re gonna live your life trapped by the world’s vain, empty erroneous, false counterfeit philosophy.
They don’t have any answers.
That’s why they gotta have more and more bigger and bigger, and, uh, the comparisons and all of these things, It’s all a matter of human decisions.
He says, we’re his workmanship.
That means you are somebody, and that word also means part of its connotation means persons of notable excellence.
Has nothing to do with beauty, riches, or where you live.
It has to do with who you are. It is who you are and your relationship to god.
He says you’re his workmanship. You don’t have to compare yourself to anybody?
Because he made you uniquely use.
So first of all, I need to understand god’s viewpoint about myself.
I’m his, created for his purpose.
So ever how long my arms are on my legs, I beg my ears are on my nose.
That’s the way he made me. So do I have to compare my nose to somebody else’s? No.
It’s where I made mine. That’s where he made mine. And so it must be alright.
Or he could have changed it.
Now I could let myself get sloppy in, uh, in in several different ways, but but when you’re just doing going along in your normal life, that’s that’s the way he made you.
So there’s nothing wrong with you.
The second thing I need to understand is I need to understand god’s love for me.
When I understand god’s love for me, something happens to feelings of inferiority.
Now how much does he love you?
Well, you might say, well, um, I know that he loves me.
Uh, I I’m I’m absolutely sure of that. And so Uh, there’s no question in my mind about that mentally.
But if you ask me if I feel loved by god, that may be a different question.
So let’s talk about this for a moment.
God loves you enough to have sinned his only begotten son Jesus to die on the cross in behalf of your sins.
Now you’ve heard that so many times, it runs in one ear and out the other probably.
But think about it for a moment. God didn’t have to.
And he had you in mind when he sent Jesus Christ in this world to die for your sins of mine.
He loves you enough that he sent Jesus who died on the cross and paid you a sentence so that you could be free.
Listen. So you could be made righteous And then he sent the holy spirit to and dwelled you so you could become the person god wants you to be.
He made you competent. He puts you in the body of Christ in salvation. And made you belong.
He sent the Holy Spirit, delivered in you to make you confident to do anything he wanted you to do.
And in the death of his son, he declared your value. I let you’re so valuable to me.
I’m willing to give my son Now, we’re the holy righteous heavenly father who loves you and me enough to come and live on the inside of us.
Who loves us as much as he loves his only begotten son, create you and me in theory.
And the answer is absolutely not one last thing.
First of all, I need to get god’s viewpoint of myself. He doesn’t create anything in theory.
Secondly, I need to understand, get his viewpoint of how much he loves me. Just like he loves his son.
And thirdly, I need to understand. Listen.
I need to understand that god I need to understand god’s expectations of me.
If I understand his viewpoint of me and I understand his love for me, and congrats that and I understand his expectations of me.
My feelings have been very gonna leave. Now what are his expectations?
First of all, He doesn’t expect me to be perfect.
He doesn’t expect any of us to be sinless. You know what his expectations are?
Not nearly what we think they are.
God doesn’t have some standing up here saying, now I’m just waiting for you to get there.
It’s like the men who jumped the high jump.
Every time they succeed, what do they do? They raised they they raised the crossbar.
So if you set a a a list of standards and rules and regulations to live by and you live up to some of them, as soon as you get these down, what’s gonna happen?
You can raise the stand. It’s not gonna work. You and I listen.
He didn’t say my adults, if you sin against god, he said, my what? My little children.
You know what that says to me?
I can look at a child and know what god expects of me.
Little child has to learn to walk stumbles and falls down.
You remember, even when you’re a teenager, you fell sometime and you hurt yourself and cut yourself We’re still making mistakes.
We get to be adults. We still falter and fall. God knows you’re not not gonna be sinless.
He’s not even expecting us to be sinless. You know what?
He knows that you’re not gonna do the right thing every single time.
We’re not even gonna do things right every single time. You know what? He doesn’t expect this to.
Because you see, by the grace of god, he provided for loving you and me through anything, all things, and everything no matter what.
You know why? He knows that you and I live in these physical bodies, and they have 5 senses.
We’re a temptable, and we’ll be tried and tested, and we’ll falter, and we’ll fall. We’ll make mistakes.
You know what happens? Every time we fall, make a mistake, a sin against him, we get up and we get up cleansed with the blood of Jesus and keep moving.
If you’re waiting till you can please god, I’m here to tell you you will die in the condition you’re in.
You’re not gonna be able to please him the way your feelings of inferiority would cause you to want to believe that somehow I’ve got to measure up.
I’m gonna one of these days, I’m gonna get there. When is that?
What are you gonna have to to get there?
The wonderful thing, you see, when I understand what his expectations are, I can relax.
And one of his expectations, 2 things. God only has 2 expectations of me.
And if you can grasp his viewpoint of you and grasp the fact of how much he loves you and grasp the fact of what his 2 simple ex his 2 simple expectations are, you can lead those feelings of uncertainty right now.
What are they? Just two things. He expects me to trust him and the following.
That’s all. He’s what about loving him? Well, if I trust him, I will love him.
If I’m following him, it’s because I love him.
That is the you see, that’s the that’s the wonderful, wonderful part. It’s that 3rd part of the triangle.
What does he expect? He just his he just expects me to trust him and the following.
You know what? He doesn’t expect me to measure up to anybody else’s expectations.
Just trust them following. Now let me give you a a illustration to close.
I think it was back in the sixties that Maxwell Malls was a plastic surgery.
And he learned something. He said he he would these women would come in or men, and maybe they would have been an accident and have all kinds of distorted facial features, and they were just it would they had devastating them.
They didn’t wanna go out in public. They didn’t wanna be seen.
Or maybe they were born certain way with nose all crooked up or one ear was big in the other room.
It was down here like this or whatever it may have been, but real distorted kind of figures.
And so he would study and he’d work. And so he would do plastic surgery on them.
And then he says, at first, his his exciting day was when it was done, and then he held this large mirror up and let them see themselves.
He said the most shocking thing happened. He’d absolutely changed this person’s facial features.
Made a woman beautiful or a man handsome.
They look in the mirror and they’d say, I looked just the way I used to look.
He said, he realized that after a while, and and even after they would come back a few weeks later, still in the same condition.
Well, you know, I’m I’m ill displeased. I paid you all this money.
And I still look the same way, and they would be totally different.
Because you see in their mind, And in their heart, they didn’t deserve to look better.
They still saw through their minds distorted understanding.
They were still ugly, still distorted when he said some of them were absolutely gorgeous.
But they never saw it. Now listen to me carefully. It doesn’t make any difference.
How much money you make? How beautiful or how handsome you are, how big your house, how expensive your car, how much money you have in the bank, your your prominence, your position in life.
It doesn’t make any difference. If you still feel inferior, you are not going to be able to enjoy anything and all the things that god may have placed in your life.
Listen. Feeling of inferiority. I want you to be sure you get this.
If you if you’re listening, say, man, feelings of inferiority are the result of a decision you and I make.
We accept them. As true, all we choose to know that they’re alive.
It’s a decision you make.
And here’s how important this is, no matter who you are, your past, your present, You have the privilege right now to say father.
I wanna thank you today that you made me the way I am. You don’t make any mistakes.
You don’t make any junk. You don’t make anything inferior. You made me this way.
I wanna thank you for loving me enough to give me skills and talents and abilities I have in life.
I wanna thank you, father, for loving me as much as you love the son.
Thank you for giving Jesus Christ me to live on the inside of me and the Holy Spirit to enable me to achieve and to accomplish.
And to do anything you want me to do, I just wanna thank you that you’ve made me the way I am, and I wanna thank you that I’m not inferior to anybody, that I’m your son, you’re a daughter, And I’m the best you could make me to be, and I just wanna thank you, because what I wanna do is I just wanna trust you and follow you and rest in a wonderful love that I know is directed toward me.
You love me, father. So I don’t have to be inferior. I feel inferior to anybody about anything.
I’m just a wonderful man that you made, and you’re working on him.
Father, I know that We got a long ways to go, but you said you weren’t gonna give up on me, and I’m not giving up on you.
And so I just wanna thank. I’m just gonna leave all my feelings of enthusiasm right here today.
And I accept who I am in Christ. I accept that I’m uniquely made. I accept that I’m fully loved.
And I accept that I am gonna make mistakes, but I’m perfectly loved even through them all.