You're not wonderful - By Elizabeth Prata

Found here. Our comments in bold.
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The author appears confused. She simultaneously refutes then agrees with her premise.

She has no idea what the Scriptures say. She manages to quote a couple, but sadly it seems like she never has read them. 

This presentation saddens us.
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I'm not wonderful either.

Sisters, aren't we continually inundated with messages like, "You are a mighty warrior of God!" Or, "You are royalty, Daughter of the King!" We're all Queen Esthers. We have royal blood flowing through our veins. We're all Mighty Warrior Princesses.

Wonderful.

Except it's not.

To be sure, we are daughters of the King. After salvation, positionally we are co-heirs with Jesus and by His blood, justified and saved from God's wrath. All true. (The author denies then affirms the truth of these statements. So why is she writing this article?)

But the relentless over-emphasis on the exaltation of our position to the detriment of also focusing on who we truly are, (Ok, it's a matter of over-emphasis. So the over-emphasis on our position causes us to not focus on who we truly are. 

Thus the author agrees that our position in Christ is as co-heirs, but she is now about to tell us who she thinks we truly are. Though God tells us who we are, apparently she disagrees.)

skews our Christian worldview. A tipped scale is out of balance and won't calculate correctly. We need to have a balanced view of who we are. (The author will never tell us how she arrives at her idea of balance. In fact, we do not agree that it is a balanced view, that instead it is unbalanced toward the old fleshly nature and not toward the new creation.

Paul gives us the correct viewpoint quite plainly:

Ro. 6:11 In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. 

Ro. 7:6 But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been released from the law so that we serve in the new way of the Spirit, and not in the old way of the written code. 

Ro. 8:10-14 But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. 11 And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. 12 Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation — but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, 14 because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

This is the biblical view. We are to regard our old nature as dead, and now we are alive in Christ. Unfortunately, the author does not seem to understand this.)

I give you two excerpts from Jeremiah Burroughs from his book The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment- (We would have hoped that she would explain from the Bible...)

1. I AM NOTHING

Just as no-one can be a scholar unless he learns his ABC, so you must learn the lesson of self-denial or you can never become a scholar in Christ's school, and be learned in this mystery of contentment. ... Such a person learns to know that he is nothing. He comes to this, to be able to say, 'Well, I see I am nothing in myself.' That man or woman who indeed knows that he or she is nothing, and has learned it thoroughly will be able to bear anything. The way to be able to bear anything is to know that we are nothing in ourselves. ... I deserve nothing. I am nothing, and I deserve nothing. Suppose I lack this and that thing which others have? I am sure that I deserve nothing except it be Hell. (This quote from Mr. Burroughs doesn't cite or reference the Bible for any assertion made. 

In addition, Mr. Burroughs switches back and forth between "I am nothing" and "I am nothing in myself." The two things don't mean the same thing.)

God does not need us. (Who has said He does? How does this connect to the topic?)

He was perfectly content in His Trinitarian delight with the other two Persons, Jesus and the Spirit. (Where does the Bible say this?)

He loved perfectly, He was self-sufficient, self-existent. He doesn't need humans to complete Him. (Who has said He does?)

He added humans to His creation for the purpose of giving Him glory. And why should we give Him glory? Because He is All in All.

When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things in subjection under him, that God may be all in all. (1 Corinthians 15:28) (Happily, the author does finally crack open her Bible. But she does this to document a point that isn't relevant to the matter at hand.) 

We give glory to the One who is so far above us that compared to Him, we are nothing. We are dust. We are not needed. (Acts 17:24-25). (Let's actually quote the verses:

24 The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by hands. 25 And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything, because he himself gives all men life and breath and everything else.

Remember the author claimed on the basis of this verse that we are not needed. But this verse actually says that God does not need the work of human hands, things like temples. Remember, Paul is talking to philosophers at the Areopagus. They had an "Altar to the Unknown God." 

Paul is explaining to these people the true nature of God to these idolaters.

Perhaps we are picking nits, but if the author cannot get basic facts correct, then why would we want to trust anything else she says?)

We are sinners deserving of death (The author now makes the central claim that speaks directly to her topic. But she does not document it! Why would she document tangential issues and not her central claim? Well, because in actual fact, the Bible does not say this about Christians.)

and by rights, should be removed far away from God.

2. I AM A DOG

Now in what disposition of heart do we thus crouch to God more than when we have this state of contentment in all the conditions that God disposes us to? This is crouching to God's disposal, to be like the poor woman of Canaan, who when Christ said, 'It is not fit to give children's meat to dogs', said 'The dogs have crumbs', I am a dog I confess, but let me have only a crumb. And so when the soul shall be in such a disposition as to lie down and say, 'Lord, I am but as a dog, yet let me have a crumb', then it highly honors God. (There is a lot of nonsense here. We have no desire to write the multiple paragraphs needed to unpack it. Suffice to say, gotquestions.org gets it right: The exact word Jesus used here, in Greek, was kunarion, meaning “small dog” or “pet dog.” This is a completely different word from the term kuon, used to refer to unspiritual people or to an “unclean” animal.

It has nothing to do with self-esteem. (Who has claimed it does?)

If anything, we humans rest on our pride and think to much of ourselves too often. We think too highly of ourselves. Paul warned about our propensity for thinking too much of ourselves-

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. (Romans 12:3).

For who makes you so superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (1 Corinthians 4:7).

(We would agree that we should not think too highly of ourselves. But the author has yet to establish that agreeing with God about who He says we are has anything to do with us thinking too highly of ourselves.)

Yes, God does love us. His love of us is perfect, so we don't have to love ourselves as much as He does. Love ourselves less, and Him more.

Every good thing the people of God enjoy, they enjoy it in God's love, as a token of God's love, and coming from God's eternal love to them, and this must needs be very sweet to them.

I have what I have from the love of God, and I have it sanctified to me by God, and I have it free of cost from God by the purchase of the blood of Jesus Christ, and I have it as a forerunner of those eternal mercies that are reserved for me; and in this my soul rejoices. There is a secret dew of God's goodness and blessing upon him in his estate that others have not. ~Jeremiah Burroughs, Rare Jewel

Focusing excessively ("Excessively." The author again draws a line but never tells us where it is drawn or why.)

on our royalty, princesshood, our queenliness or other exaltations will only bring discontentment. The higher we think ourselves, the lower we think of God. (We don't know this inverse relationship is true. We think it is possible to honor God by recognizing as true what He says we are. If this assertion is true... 

1Pe. 2:9 But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.

...then why would recognizing the truth about our status as defined by God be a bad thing? And why is focusing on our sin and lowness more correct? 

The author never explains.)

Only One was exalted. (This is false.

Ep. 2:6 And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus... 

Col. 3:3 For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. 

Ro. 6:4-7 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. 5 If we have been united with him like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection. 6 For we know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be done away with, that we should no longer be slaves to sin — 7 because anyone who has died has been freed from sin. 

Jesus was lifted up on the cross, He stooped low to bring us into His kingdom and reigns on high. We all know intrinsically that we are worthy of death, that we're sinners due His wrath. (Again the author asserts her premise but does not document it.)

We suppress this truth. (Romans 1:18). We tend to all too easily suppress it even after salvation, as Paul warns and admonishes the Romans and Corinthians in the verses above. (Sigh. Let's quote the passage. Ro. 1:17-19: 

Ro. 17 For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last,  just as it is written: “The righteous will live by faith.” [Hab. 2:4] 18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.

There is no wrath towards the righteous. The righteous do not suppress the truth. The righteous are not wicked. Paul is not talking about Christians in verse 18, he is describing those who have rejected the "gospel of righteousness."

The author is completely wrong.)

I became a servant of this gospel by the gift of God's grace, given me through the working of His power. (Ephesians 3:7). The lesson in that short verse-

• We are servants.
• We perform God's will.
• His grace is a gift.

It is His power. Let us think no higher than we ought. Yes we're co-heirs, but we are also nothing, dogs of sin asking our Master for a crumb. He generously gives it, that and much more, but not because we are equals, not because we are royalty, not because we are mighty, but because we are weak children who He chooses to love.

Remember that.