Today confidence comes in many forms, shapes and sizes. We are taught confidence at an early stage. We are taught what it looks like to have confidence, what it should feel like to have confidence, and even what it sounds like to have confidence. However, this confidence is taught for self-pleasure. We are taught to hold our heads high, how to carry ourselves and even how to talk so that when we meet people, they will be able to tell that we are sure of ourselves and have confidence. However, living this Christian life, we need more than just confidence in ourselves to survive and thrive.
Confidence is defined as firm trust; a feeling or belief that one can rely on someone or something; feeling certain; faith or belief in something; reliance or support.
In 2 Corinthians 3:4-6 it says, such is the confidence that we have through Jesus Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God who has made us competent to be minister of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the spirit. For the letter kills but the spirit gives life.
The world teaches us to have confidence in ourselves, however God teaches us to have confidence in Him. In and of ourselves we can do nothing, but the Bible teaches us in Philippians 4:13, I can do all things through Christ which gives me strength.
The world even teaches us to recognize its confidence in how someone carries themselves, how to dress, speak or even how they act. But I have come to believe that is a façade. That’s the face value of what many people today want you to believe in order to conceal a less pleasant reality. I’ve come to learn and know that there are a lot of dress up, well spoken people who present themselves as confident but are crushed in spirit. Truth is, any reliance on ourselves is a one way ticket to dressed up failure. God is aware of every short coming we face, because He faced them first. The Holy Spirit helps, comforts and supports us in this life because Christ did it first. I’ve come to learn that confidence in myself is always short lived, because I am only flesh and I fail daily, but His grace is always sufficient. God’s strength is perfected in all my weakness so I boast not on who I am, what I can do or even how I present myself because it’s only through the Holy Spirit that I can live and thrive.
In Philippians 1:6 it says, be confident of this, that He who began and good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ. God is not a start and stop kind of God. He is always evolving His relationship with His children. This scripture tells me that God is always working for us and on us. We can be sure that God hears our prayers and our cries, we can be sure that its good, and we can be sure that God finishes what He starts. Rest assured that as we have confidence in God, that it will exude through everything we do. Such confidence in God will show in our walk, our talk and how we carry ourselves. We work way too hard when we try to show up as just ourselves. I don’t know about you, I don’t just want to be myself, I want to be who God wants me to be and has called me to be. Trying to do this on my own is just way too much weight to carry.
In Jeremiah 17:7, it tells me blessed is the man who trust in the Lord. So, I am blessed when I have confidence in God; I have everything I need when I have confidence in God; I can rest assured that all things will work for my good when I have confidence in God.
In Proverbs 3:26, it says, for the Lord your God will be your confidence and will keep your foot from being caught. This is a promise! This tells me that if I keep my confidence in God, He will protect me from the snares of the enemy. We sometimes misplace our confidence by relying on our own capacity and human understanding. However, there are just some things we will never understand, and in those moments, we must rely on God and have confidence in His plan for our lives. That even when things don’t seem to be moving, God is still working in our lives for the good.
So, remember this, confidence is not how fly you dress, how good you look, or even how well you speak. Those are just attributes of confidence. And often, we are good at faking itbecause we have been taught how to mimic attributes. However, placing your confidence in God is how you win. All of life’s drama begin with human frailty, so let God be the source of your confidence. And when the Holy Spirit show s up for you, there will be no doubt where your confidence came from.
I love you, Blessings Flow