Where Is Your Confidence?

By TAHREN TERRELL BRANDON

Psalm 51 is the passage of scripture where a contrite King David looked to God to do a serious cleansing of his spirit, he knew that he could not cleanse himself. After being left to his own devices, now guilty of murder, adultery and collusion, he pleads with God to create in him a clean heart and to uphold him (v. 12). David knows he needs God to, not only create a clean heart in him, but after he receives this new heart, keep Him on the righteous path. Despite all of the sin David was guilty of throughout his life, the confidence he had in God made him a man after God's own heart.

There is a common misconception about confidence, that, we as believers should have it in ourselves. Nothing wrong with confidence, the question is; where is your confidence? Particularly, in the current culture we are encouraged to have self-confidence. "Believe in ones-self," we tell people, "Have faith in yourself" But shouldn't we be encouraging people to have faith, not in self, but in God? Who are we to believe in ourselves? What have we accomplished on our own that we should feel good about? My father, the beloved Rev. E. Philip Terrell, used to say, "Don't you recognize that all you have accomplished and all that you have, came by the hand of a good God? We are not here because we are good, but because God is good."

Even Jesus rejected claims that He was good, affirming that none was good but the Father (Lk. 18:19). If Jesus refused to accept accolades, why do we think we are so special? We live in a generation that is the literal manifestation of men being lovers of their-selves (2 Tm. 3:2). In 2013, Oxford added the word "Selfie" to its dictionary; ironically, it is listed directly after "self-idolatry." It used to be products had brands, now people are brands. People have followers and compete with others to see who can have the most followers. When did we stop being followers of Christ and start following flawed, fallen man? See what self-confidence will get you; an inflated sense of self and delusions of grandeur.

We are not sufficient in ourselves, Paul says so in 2 Corinthians 3:4, he says that our confidence is through Christ and that if we have any sufficiency, any competency at all, it is only from God. Do we heal our own diseases, make our own provisions, and breathe breath into our own lungs? Do we seamlessly cause our sensory neurons to carry signals from the sensory receptors to our spinal cord and brain? Nope. We do not even think of things like that, we do not have to. God, in His unfathomable goodness, has granted grace to us all, in the form of innumerable blessings and mercies; despite our tendency to worship the creation instead of the Creator. When David asked God to create in him a clean heart, he was asking God to do something no one else can do, create something out of nothing. He had full confidence that God not only could, but would perform a miracle for him. What do we need today that only God can do? How many times is our confidence in self-going to lead us to failure and disappointment before we turn our hope and faith towards God?

Where is our confidence? If it is in ourselves, let us redirect it to the Author and Finisher of our faith, Jesus Christ.