If you type in the keyword confidence in Amazon books you will get over 14,000 titles that have something to do with confidence.  Writing with confidence, walking in confidence,  confidence in the workplace, confidence in dating, confidence in confidence, the list goes on and on.  There are thousands of articles, programs, and tapes on gaining confidence, retaining confidence, and sustaining confidence.  People pay boku bucks for seminars, speakers, and even swindlers with formulas that turn the shrinking violet into a fearless flower.  Some of these confidence peddlers even propagate their promises from the pulpit, forgoing a spiritual confidence for a humanistic form of positive thinking.


Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller, and Joel Olsteen and many, many others teach a pseudo-Christian message that bases our confidence entirely on our own efforts.  That would be fine if they admitted that they were secularists and their message was a New Age Humanist concoction of many religions, group think, and psycho-babble, but that, unfortunately, is not the case.  They throw in some scriptures, hold up the Bible once in a while and stand behind unusually large pulpits, and in so doing, make a case that their advice must be Biblical.  Well, to pull our a quote from my youth, I find Peale appalling and Paul appealing.  True confidence does not from within us, but from the spirit within us.  The above purveyors of muck attempt to make us totally self-reliant, denying any need for God,
and yet purport to be men of God.

God outlines Who and what we can have confidence in and how that confidence can be foundational to our daily lives.   First of all, we can have confidence in our relationship with God.  Why, because of the sacrifice of Christ on our behalf.  The writer of Hebrews states, “Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, by the fresh and living way that he inaugurated for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a sincere heart in the assurance that faith brings, because we have had our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water.  And let us hold unwaveringly to the hope that we confess, for the one who made the promise is trustworthy.” (Hebrews 10:19-23)    The above verses tell us that we can be confident to enter into the presence of God because we have been made clean by the sprinkling of Christ’s blood.  We can draw near to the holy God because the One we hold onto is trustworthy.   Second Corinthians 3:4,5 says, “Such confidence we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.”

The other day I asked one of my co-workers how he was doing, and he said,  “Pretty good, considering the circumstances.”  He is a believer,
so I mentioned that we will seldom do “really” good if we stay IN our circumstances.  We need to be ABOVE our circumstances because that is where Christ awaits to strengthen us.  Christ gives us the confidence to rise above the world around us and to enter into peace and strength through Him.

We can be confident that God will strengthen us and is there when we need Him.  Again Paul tells us, “For I am confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus.”  (Philippians 1:6)  We will go through difficulties, but we can be assured that while we are in His hands, nothing can thwart God’s plans.   As He has told us,  “(We) can do all things through Him who strengthens (us).  (Philippians 4:13)  Our confidence can be based on who the Lord is, not who we are.   When we get overconfident in ourselves, we stop feeling a need for God.  When we stop feeling a need for God, we are, in essence, replacing God.  When we replace God with ourselves, we are, in essence, saying we are equal to God.  That is not confidence; that is ludicrous.

There is the story of a great politician who was asked how he was able to keep himself in prospective when so many others put him on a pedestal.  “When I begin to think too highly of myself I walk outside and look at the night sky.  It only take a matter of minutes to realize how small I really am.  If I am to have confidence it should be in the one who made the stars instead of the one who can only look at them.”

Our confidence should come from Him because He is willing to supply it.   “Be strong and courageous, do not be afraid or tremble at them, for the LORD your God is the one who goes with you He will not fail you or forsake you.”  ( Deuteronomy 31:6)  The verse does not say be strong and courageous because we are strong and courageous but because God goes with us is and  He “…will be (our)  confidence and will keep (our feet) from being caught.  (Proverbs 3:26)

End of Part 1