If you want to increase your self-acceptance and your opinion of yourself, decide right here and now that not one more negative thing about you will ever come out of your mouth.

Acknowledge the Good Things

That the communication of thy faith may become effectual by the acknowledging of every good thing which is in you in Christ Jesus.
(Phil. 1:6 KJV)

The devil wants us to acknowledge every bad thing we see in ourselves because he doesn't want the communication of our faith to be effectual. He wants us to spend every waking moment acknowledging in our mind and out of our mouth how awful we are because, as the accuser of the brethren (Rev. 12:9-10), he continually tries to redirect our focus from who we are in Christ back onto our shortcomings.

The devil wants to bombard us with opportunities to think negative thoughts about ourselves so that we will return to that pattern of thinking most of us learned growing up. We will again fall into the deception that our worth is based on our performance, and because of our faults, we are worthless.

One reason it is so important not to speak negatively about ourselves is that we believe what we say more than what anybody else says. But once we truly understand who we are in Christ and see how much He has done for us through shedding His blood to make us worthy, we will realize we are actually insulting our heavenly Father by excessively meditating on our faults, flaws and failures. Acts 10:15 says: "...What God has cleansed and pronounce clean, do not you defile and profane by regarding and calling common and unhallowed or unclean."

In Rightstanding With God
One of the first revelations God gave me out of the Word was on righteousness. By "revelation" I mean one day you suddenly understand something to the point that it becomes part of you. The knowledge isn't only in your mind - you no longer need to renew your mind to it because you don't wonder or hope it's true - you know.

I knew I was righteous in Christ because God gave me an understanding of a passage in 2 Corinthians:

For our sake He [God] made Christ [virtually] to be sin Who knew no sin, so that in and through Him we might become [endued with, viewed as being in, and examples of] the righteousness of God [what we ought to be, approved and acceptable and in right relationship with Him, by His goodness].
(2 Cor. 5:21)

Righteousness Is God's Gift

...[Righteousness, standing acceptable to God] will be granted and credited to us also who believe in (trust in, adhere to, and rely on) God, Who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.
(Rom. 4:24)

Above all else, the devil does not want us to walk in the reality that we are in rightstanding with God. He wants us always vaguely contemplating what is wrong with us instead of thinking about what is right with us through Jesus' blood.

I had been walking in this revelation of righteousness for a few years and teaching the Word for quite a while, when something happened that showed me how important it is not to speak negatively about ourselves. When we receive a revelation, we are held responsible for it, and I was held responsible for saying negative things about myself.

The Importance of Speaking in Line With God's Word
Dave and I planned and prayed to have our son Daniel. He wasn't an accident - we wanted him. But after he was born, I let the change in my lifestyle affect me negatively.

I wasn't used to spending so much time in the house. I had put on a few pounds and my skin had gone through changes, normal with having a baby. But I thought I was ugly and fat and would stay that way forever. I fell into a permanent lousy mood.

One morning before Dave left for work, he was trying to encourage and cheer me up. In the process he told me I really should not be acting as I was, that I knew better. I got mad at him. Then he said something else, and I said something else, and at last I had an excuse to do what I had wanted to do for days - blow up.

After Dave left and I was alone in the house nursing Daniel at the kitchen table, thinking about what had just happened, I started speaking bad things to myself: "That's right, Joyce, you're just a big jerk. You're a mess. You think studying the Word is going to help you? Nothing's going to help you. You've been a mess as long as you've been on the earth, and you're going to always be a mess. Just forget it; you're never going to straighten up."

All of a sudden I felt an evil, suffocating presence coming across the room at me. It was so strong I could almost see it. From my knowledge of the Word of God, I immediately knew a demonic power was about to attach itself to me because of what I had been saying about myself.

Thank God for the Word we plant in ourselves for without even thinking, I automatically started speaking it out: "I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. I am the righteousness of God in Christ. His blood covers me."

In the same way it came in, the evil presence backed off and the atmosphere in the room became clear again. Needless to say, that experience put a holy fear in me about the importance of speaking in line with the Word - especially about myself!

Source: Help Me, I'm Insecure by Joyce Meyer
Excerpt permission granted by Harrison House Publishers