Society in general, and our culture in particular, is trying so hard to squeeze young people into false understanding of some great concepts.

They're trying to squeeze them into wrong understanding of what self-esteem is all about and what self-worth is all about and what

is self-love is all about. And that is why it is a sheer delight to see Christian young people

whose self-esteem emanates from believing that they are loved by the Lord and that they're cared for by the Most High,

that they are known by Him by name, and that they anchor their hope in the fact that the Son

of God came from heaven, died on a cross, and rose again for their salvation,

and that He has adopted them as sons and daughters and has given them his last name,

that he alone can give them joy and fulfillment in life, an eternal life with him in heaven.

That was such an great encouragement for me.

That is why today I want to talk to you about a teenage girl who, from the human point of view, she faced a crisis

of an immense proportion that none of us will ever even comprehend, let alone experience.

And yet, because her confidence was in the Word of God, because her trust was in the promises of God,

because of her relationship with God, because of the fact that her self-esteem was founded upon the scripture,

she not only faced that crisis with confidence, but 2,000 years later,

millions of people call her blessed.

I wanted to turn with me, if you haven't already, to Luke, Chapter 1, verses 46 to 55.

This is a prayer in a song. The song of Mary became known as the Magnificat from the Latin

word to magnify because the King James Version says, my soul magnifies the Lord. But really it teaches us a lot of things. It teaches us of the lasting power

of real biblical self-esteem. It teaches us the lasting power of an authentic self-esteem.

It teaches us the lasting power of a rightfully placed confidence,

the lasting power of self-image that is based on the Lord Jesus Christ, not like the self-image

of today that seem to be warped by materialism, that seem to be corrupted by

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