In "other" Words - God-Confidence

I have the privilege of hosting IOW today and have selected the following quote.  Please join us and leave a comment.

Because I am loved by God, I can confess  my flaws - laziness, grouchiness, self-doubt - and trust God to keep on transforming me.  I no longer need to appear perfect to friends, family, and anyone who attends my high-school reunion.

Confidence is generally described as a state of being certain, either that a hypothesis or prediction is correct, or that a chosen course of action is the best or most effective given the circumstances. Confidence can be described as a subjective, emotional state of mind, but is also represented statistically as a confidence level within which one may be certain that a hypothesis will either be rejected or deemed plausible. Self-confidence is having confidence in oneself when considering a capability. Overconfidence is having unmerited confidence--believing something or someone is capable when they are not.


There is a wealth of material available regarding personal inner power and self confidence. Many articles proclaim that self confidence is all about personal power and an inner awareness. An internal state of being if you will. A power that makes us feel in control of our lives. An inner knowing that we are capable of achieving goals and our ability to attain what we want in life. I beg to differ with this worldly philosophy.

As Christians, it isn't about us. Any talent or ability that we posses has been given to us from God. It has nothing to do with us. Our confidence and strength comes from the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one who encourages us to keep fighting the good fight. He encourages us to keep our eyes fixed on Him and to achieve the goal He has set before us.  Our culture rewards us for appearing confident even if it is false confidence.  But Jesus can see deep into our hearts and places little value in appearances

Self-Confidence is a misplaced reliance and it is offensive before the sight of God. We sin against God when we think we can be self-sufficient and the masters of our fate. How many times do we shake our fist in God's face and tell Him we know much better than He does when we defy the Word because it simply does not fit our lifestyle? God instructs us to study His Word daily so that we can reject the temptations of the enemy. But we think that we have it all together and we choose to trust in OURSELVES and OUR abilities instead of God.

Whenever we turn our hearts from God, we are telling Him that we do not want to be connected to His life coaching class. We would rather coach ourselves and rely totally on our own abilities. But in the end all we will have conquered is to commit spiritual suicide. Our life coaching efforts will go right down the drain!

Society pressures us to put on our smiley face each day and constantly compete with those around us in the race of life, making certain that we are showing the world we are definitely confident in ourselves and have it all together.  That is ludicrous! Our source of life is God. God says that anyone who turns away from Him to trust in his own sinful flesh for strength will, "be like a bush in the wastelands; he will not see prosperity when it comes. He will dwell in the parched places of the desert, in a salt where no one lives" (Jeremiah 17:6).

God tells us of consequences that will occur in this life and the next if we turn our hearts away from him and trust in ourselves. Isolation, deprivation and condemnation are the best we can expect if we choose that path. Bushes in the desert are small and their growth stunted because they are cut off from the rains that give life. Without God and His Word, which is the living water, we also will become like the dry lifeless bush living in a parched wasteland.

Jeremiah writes, "But blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose confidence is in Him. He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8). God is the exact opposite of a barren wasteland. He gives confidence to His children. God always provided, always delivered, and always responded to the cries of His people for help.

Our trust and confidence is often misplaced, often disappointed. Our ideals lie shattered, our goals unattained, our ambitions unfulfilled. In the end, we find that self-reliance and inner power is able to produce nothing but depression and despair.

As we grow in our relationship with God, we need to get real - avoiding outlandish self-confidence, getting rid of self-degradation and self-doubt, which often develop into false humility.  The danger of being well fed and on top of the world is that this condition can make it difficult for us to recognize that we're confident in ourselves and our situations rather than in God.

Jeremiah reminds us to place our trust and confidence in God. God has given us His Word so that we can sink our roots firmly into His promises. God confidence instills self-confidence. There is no inner personal power. Personal power CANNOT move mountains and personal power does not solve problems. Jesus Christ moves mountains. He provides Godly wisdom and coaches us when making life decisions.

 As our confidence in God's willingness to use us grows, we need to be developing simultaneously a God-processed view of ourselves - learning it in our minds, absorbing it into our hearts, and trying it out in our behavior. ~Jan Johnson~

Allow God to build your confidence as you continue to act in His strength.  Get on your knees at the end of a day and praise God for what He did in lives as you had the privilege of using the gifts He has blessed you with.  Thank Him for what was was accomplished. 

Blessings and hugs!