Confidence

When Chase and Camille were young, before they could drive, I would take them to school and say the same prayer over them everyday.  Out loud I would pray this prayer, "God I pray that you give Camille and Chase confidence and assurance that comes through the Holy Spirit.  Do not let them accept their confidence through their peers, teachers, their abilities or weaknesses. I pray that their confidence comes from You God and You alone."

How do we become and stay confident?  

Most of us have been taught to have self-confidence, and that sounds really normal and healthy, but what if God is wanting us to get rid of the self and replace it with God. We need “God-confidence.”  God-confidence looks different than the self-confidence. When I am self-confident, I take on life as what I can do. I become focused on my own abilities and talents and opinions. The bottom line is that putting confidence in yourself makes it all about you. When self is dependent on our  having confidence then self must sustain our confidence. When we are trying to sustain our own confidence, then when we have a bad hair day, suddenly our whole world is crumbling. That's a little exaggerated, but you see that we can be influenced by our emotions and our circumstances if our confidence is totally on us!   Self-confidence is the mask that pride hides behind! (Ouch)

God has given us His Word to guide us in confidence. In Philippians 4:13 (AMP) it says, "I have strength for all things in Christ who empowers me (I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him Who infuses inner strength into me; I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency).” In other words, we become confident through Jesus, and we stay confident through our relationship with Him.  

Now my confidence is not reliant on me. My confidence is relying on God's abilities and He is the God of the Impossible!!!!! With God, I can do what He has called me to do. Without God, I can struggle. Jesus gives us a great visual in John 15:5, "I am the vine; you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." Well that's pretty clear: apart from Jesus, I can do nothing. Then, in verse 7, Jesus gives us a promise, "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you."

When I totally rely and totally trust Jesus, then my confidence is totally on God and not myself.  If we need more confidence, could it be that we need more Jesus????

My prayer today is, “God give us confidence and assurance that comes through the Power of the Holy Spirit.  Do not let our confidence come through our friends, degrees, social status, brands worn, our abilities and our weaknesses.  I pray that our confidence comes from You God and You alone. Supernaturally empower us with God-confidence!” Amen.