Men are dead to God because they are alive to self. All of church history the church denounced self-esteem, today we affirm it. We need to repent of our worship of self. We need to deny self, not esteem. Truly we need to repent of the sin of playing God.
Man is preoccupied with self.
Self has become the predominant theme of a large percentage of Christian books and sermons. People are buying all kinds of self-help books, but self does not need help. Self needs death. We must either deny self or deny Christ. It is either one or the other.