Self-confidence is one of today’s most popular subjects. Conferences, seminars, workshops, and best selling authors tell us that the key to success is to be self-confident. Consequently, we’re encouraged to live boldly, think big, and craft BHAG’s (Big Hairy Audacious Goals).
Confident people inspire confidence in others: their audience, their peers, their bosses, their customers, and their friends. And gaining the confidence of others is one of the key ways in which a self-confident person finds success. Having self-confidence is even finding its way into church life. How so?
There’s no shortage of some celebrity preachers who make self-confidence the centerpiece of their teaching. You hear it during church services, conferences, and read about it in books. Has anyone considered if Scripture encourages self-confidence? If so, what should we be confident about? If not, why not? In order to answer the aforementioned questions, first, let’s define confidence.
Confidence
In a literal sense, confidence is a feeling of self-assurance arising from one’s appreciation of one’s own abilities or qualities. It’s closely tied to self-esteem, which is the opinion you have of yourself. The word confidence is used 60 times in the New International Version. The majority of uses concern trust in people, circumstances, or God. What if I told you that there are some things we should not have confidence in. Would you believe me?
The Worst Place to Place Confidence – Your Flesh
The Apostle Paul writes, “Have no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). He wrote these words to counter the claims of those who thought they were acceptable to God based on their heredity, training, or religious devotion. Confidence in the flesh happens when we rest on past achievements. What we did one time becomes our grounds of boasting: a battle we won…an experience we went through, that others didn’t have…an award we won…an honor we had. To rest on past achievements represents confidence in the flesh.
The Best Place to Place Confidence – God
If we’re going to be confident in something, Psalm 118:8-9 tells us what it should be: “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.” Those who trust in government, finances, other people, or themselves will be disappointed in the end. On the other hand, those who put their confidence in God will never be ashamed (Romans 10:11).
Finally, when we put our trust in God and His revealed Word, our lives take on a new stability, focus, and poise. A biblical self-confidence is really a confidence in God’s Word and character. We put no confidence in our flesh, but we have every confidence in the God who made us, called us, saved us and keeps us.
Are you feeling confident?
