self-respect

156:5.14Spir­i­tual liv­ing might­ily in­creases true self-re­spect. But self-re­spect is not self-ad­mi­ra­tion. Self-re­spect is al­ways co-or­di­nate with the love and ser­vice of one’s fel­lows. It is not pos­si­ble to re­spect your­self more than you love your neigh­bor; the one is the mea­sure of the ca­pac­ity for the other.

10:1.2The Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther all along has di­vested him­self of ev­ery part of him­self that was be­stow­able on any other Cre­ator or crea­ture. He has del­e­gated to his di­vine Sons and their as­so­ci­ated in­tel­li­gences ev­ery power and all au­thor­ity that could be del­e­gated. He has ac­tu­ally trans­ferred to his Sov­er­eign Sons, in their re­spec­tive uni­verses, ev­ery pre­rog­a­tive of ad­min­is­tra­tive au­thor­ity that was trans­fer­able. In the af­fairs of a lo­cal uni­verse, he has made each Sov­er­eign Cre­ator Son just as per­fect, com­pe­tent, and au­thor­i­ta­tive as is the Eter­nal Son in the orig­i­nal and cen­tral uni­verse. He has given away, ac­tu­ally be­stowed, with the dig­nity and sanc­tity of per­son­al­ity pos­ses­sion, all of him­self and all of his at­tri­butes, ev­ery­thing he pos­si­bly could di­vest him­self of, in ev­ery way, in ev­ery age, in ev­ery place, and to ev­ery per­son, and in ev­ery uni­verse ex­cept that of his cen­tral in­dwelling.

• aimed at s.-r. in his life

140:8.20Je­sus did not at­tack the teach­ings of the He­brew proph­ets or the Greek moral­ists. The Mas­ter rec­og­nized the many good things which these great teach­ers stood for, but he had come down to earth to teach some­thing ad­di­tional, “the vol­un­tary con­for­mity of man’s will to God’s will.” Je­sus did not want sim­ply to pro­duce a re­li­gious man, a mor­tal wholly oc­cu­pied with re­li­gious feel­ings and ac­tu­ated only by spir­i­tual im­pulses. Could you have had but one look at him, you would have known that Je­sus was a real man of great ex­pe­ri­ence in the things of this world. The teach­ings of Je­sus in this re­spect have been grossly per­verted and much mis­rep­re­sented all down through the cen­turies of the Chris­tian era; you have also held per­verted ideas about the Mas­ter’s meek­ness and hu­mil­ity. What he aimed at in his life ap­pears to have been a su­perb self-re­spect. He only ad­vised man to hum­ble him­self that he might be­come truly ex­alted; what he re­ally aimed at was true hu­mil­ity to­ward God. He placed great value upon sin­cer­ity—a pure heart. Fi­delity was a car­di­nal virtue in his es­ti­mate of char­ac­ter, while cour­age was the very heart of his teach­ings. “Fear not” was his watch­word, and pa­tient en­durance his ideal of strength of char­ac­ter. The teach­ings of Je­sus con­sti­tute a re­li­gion of valor, cour­age, and hero­ism. And this is just why he chose as his per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tives twelve com­mon­place men, the ma­jor­ity of whom were rugged, vir­ile, and manly fish­er­men.

• stopped at nothing to restore s.-r.

159:3.3In bring­ing men into the king­dom, do not lessen or de­stroy their self-re­spect. While over­much self-re­spect may de­stroy proper hu­mil­ity and end in pride, con­ceit, and ar­ro­gance, the loss of self-re­spect of­ten ends in paral­y­sis of the will. It is the pur­pose of this gospel to re­store self-re­spect to those who have lost it and to re­strain it in those who have it. Make not the mis­take of only con­demn­ing the wrongs in the lives of your pupils; re­mem­ber also to ac­cord gen­er­ous rec­og­ni­tion for the most praise­wor­thy things in their lives. For­get not that I will stop at noth­ing to re­store self-re­spect to those who have lost it, and who re­ally de­sire to re­gain it.

• taught men to place high value on themselves

196:2.10He taught men to place a high value upon them­selves in time and in eter­nity. Be­cause of this high es­ti­mate which Je­sus placed upon men, he was will­ing to spend him­self in the un­remit­ting ser­vice of hu­mankind. And it was this in­fi­nite worth of the fi­nite that made the golden rule a vi­tal fac­tor in his re­li­gion. What mor­tal can fail to be up­lifted by the ex­traor­di­nary faith Je­sus has in him?

71:3.9A moral so­ci­ety should aim to pre­serve the self-re­spect of its cit­i­zenry and af­ford ev­ery nor­mal in­di­vid­ual ad­e­quate op­por­tu­nity for self-re­al­iza­tion. Such a plan of so­cial achieve­ment would yield a cul­tural so­ci­ety of the high­est or­der. So­cial evo­lu­tion should be en­cour­aged by gov­ern­men­tal super­vi­sion which ex­er­cises a min­i­mum of reg­u­la­tive con­trol. That state is best which co-or­di­nates most while gov­ern­ing least.