Success comes in cans, not can’ts.
Anonymous
Can confidence become a habit, or is it something that we must wait to feel? I firmly believe we can become habitually confident. What is confidence? It is the belief that you are capable and able to do whatever it is that needs to be done. The world calls it self-confidence, but God’s Word calls it confidence in Christ. If my confidence is in me, I am likely to be regularly disappointed in my ability to perform or remain stable, but if my confidence is firmly planted in Christ, I can be assured that He will always remain the same.
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].
Philippians 4:13
This is a Scripture verse that I turn to frequently to remind myself that through Christ, I can do whatever I need to do in life. I think we do need to be reminded because there are lots of people ready and waiting to tell us what we can’t do and what we are not. Sally Field said, “It took me a long time not to judge myself through someone else’s eyes.” Let’s stop giving others consent to make us feel inferior, and let’s believe what God says about us in His Word.
What does He say? Here are five things He says that will encourage you.
1. You are loved perfectly and completely (I John 4:16–18).
2. You are accepted and will never be rejected by Him if you believe (John 3:18).
3. You have talents and abilities (Romans 12:6).
4. God created you uniquely and you should not compare yourself with others (Psalm 139:13–16).
5. You can do whatever you need to do through Christ and not be afraid of failing (Philippians 4:13).
I chose these five things because they have all ministered to me greatly in my own life. I was insecure and lacked true confidence for the first forty years of my life, but believing God’s Word has given me confidence and a new life. It will do the same thing for you.
Merely reading the Scriptures above did not initially change me. I had to learn to think them over and over in my mind and speak them out of my mouth. I have looked at them hundreds if not thousands of times and let them soak into my consciousness. They have renewed my mind and changed me and my attitude about myself and my relationship with God. I now have the confidence habit, and you can have it too. We can either believe what God says, or we can believe what we think and what people say. I think God is the best and most reliable choice.
Being confident will ultimately enable us to live a bolder life and do things we would not do without confidence, but the most important things that it does for us lie inside of us. Our true life is in us, and it is not found in what we own or what we do for a living or who we know or how highly educated we are. These things may be part of a confident person’s life, but they are not the most important part of anyone’s life. Some people mistakenly think they are, and they waste their life striving to improve their outer life without ever paying attention to their inner life.
A confident person is at rest in her soul. Jesus promised us that if we would come to Him, He would give us rest, ease, refreshment, recreation, and blessed quiet for our souls (Matthew 11:29). Doesn’t that sound absolutely wonderful? Rest for our souls is vital. We can lay our body down and get physical rest but not be truly resting because our soul (mind, will, emotions) is still working the entire time. Give your soul a vacation!
Being at rest internally is worth more than anything we own or will ever do. There are many seemingly confident and successful people who are miserable inside. I think it is important for each of us to realize what is most important and have a goal to obtain it. Have you paid more attention to your outer life than to your inner? If so, this is a good time to make a change.
God’s Word teaches us to put no confidence in what we are in the flesh, on outward privileges and advantages, but instead to find our confidence in Christ alone (Philippians 3:3). If we do that, we will have a blessed quiet for our souls that nothing else compares to. The confidence of knowing that God loves, accepts, and approves of you is the best thing you can ever have.
Do you have the confidence that God is with you at all times? He is, and He wants all of us to have that assurance. Not just a mere hope, but assurance! Even when we don’t feel His presence or see any evidence that He is with us, we can have complete confidence that He is. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us but to be with us always. You are never alone. God is omnipresent, and that means that He is everywhere, all the time.
Where could I go from Your Spirit? Or where could I flee from Your presence?
If I ascend up into heaven, You are there; if I make my bed in Sheol (the place of the dead), behold, You are there.
If I take the wings of the morning or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there shall Your hand lead me, and Your right hand shall hold me.
Psalm 139:7–10
We can see from this Psalm written by David that he enjoyed the kind of confidence I am speaking about, and we can and should enjoy it also. You and I can confidently face any situation or challenge or any new thing that might try to intimidate or frighten us. As we approach it we can say to ourselves, “Through Christ’s strength and by placing my confidence in Him, I can do this!”
I urge you to make a decision that you will not be a timid, insecure, doubtful person, but that you will be confident. When I am ministering to crowds of people, I have to just decide to be confident no matter how I might feel. I cannot always discern from watching people if they approve of me or of what I am saying, or even how interested they are. We cannot look to others to make us feel confident, because if we do, then we will always need a fresh fix of approving nods, glances, and words of acceptance in order to be stable.
I went through a lot of agony trying to minister to people for a long time. If anyone got up and left the conference when I was teaching, I felt sure that they didn’t like me or what I was saying. If anyone looked bored or sleepy, I immediately thought that I was the problem. I let their faces dictate my level of confidence, and I had to stop it or be miserable the rest of my life. Do you want to spend your life looking for approval, or have the assurance that you have God’s approval and that is all you truly need?
Confidence is not a feeling we have; it is a right mind-set. We can think that people don’t like us or that they do, so why do most people lean toward the negative? They lean that way because the devil is influencing their thinking, and they either are not aware of it or they don’t take aggressive action to reclaim their thoughts. We can be afraid that we are going to fail, or we can expect to succeed.
True godly aggression begins in the inner man. Be bold and aggressive, approaching each day with confidence, expecting to be successful in whatever you do that day. If we have a quiet, confident inner attitude, we will never have any problem doing what we need to do. Confidence is not a feeling that we must work up and then go out into the world and move fast, talk loud, and often be obnoxious. It is a quiet and beautiful thing that begins in the heart and stands firm in its conviction that we are not alone and we are able. The attitude of the confident person is filled with cans, not can’ts. It is firm, steadfast, and strong in the Lord.
Approach every area of life with confidence. If you are facing a major change at this time in your life, don’t be afraid of it. You can be confident that it will be a new season of blessing. If you are in the midst of some trial or difficulty, even in that you can be confident that God has a plan and that He will never allow more to happen to you than you can bear. He will provide a way out, and you will gain valuable experience that will aid you in the future.
Prayer is a major part of our life as children of God, and we must pray with confidence that God hears and wants to meet our needs and right desires. God doesn’t want us to approach Him timidly, fearfully, and without confidence. He instructs us to come boldly to His throne to ask for what we need and want. We are never told to sneak up to the throne or to crawl as a beggar. We know Jesus, and we have the use of His wonderful and powerful name so we can and should go boldly.
Consider these two verses of Scripture:
And I will do [I Myself will grant] whatever you ask in My Name [as presenting all that I AM], so that the Father may be glorified and extolled in (through) the Son.
[Yes] I will grant [I Myself will do for you] whatever you shall ask in My Name [as presenting all that I AM].
John 14:13–14
Not only is what Jesus says amazing, but He says it two times in a row. To me, that means He really wants us to get it. Asking for “whatever” doesn’t sound timid or fearful to me. It sounds like confidence that we are loved and can come boldly to God knowing that we are loved and He wants to meet our needs. God wants to be involved in everything we do, and we invite Him into our business through prayer.
Here is a truly amazing Scripture:
You who [are His servants and by your prayers] put the Lord in remembrance [of His promises], keep not silence.
Isaiah 62:6b
It requires confidence to actually remind God what He has promised you. Imagine a child coming to his father and saying, “Dad, you promised that you would play ball with me tonight.” That is a beautiful example of a child who is confident in his dad’s love. But it was a bit more difficult for me to believe I could go to Father God in that same way, reminding Him of His promises to me. Over the years I have gained enough confidence to do that, and I see amazing results. Yesterday as I prayed I said something like this: “Father, You have promised to give me favor so I am expecting to see it today. You have promised to give me strength to do all things, so I am expecting to be energized by Your strength for all of my tasks today. You are my wisdom, so I expect that I will not do anything foolish today. I will make wise decisions.” On and on I went, reminding God of His promises, and I bore witness in my spirit that it was right to do it. I have decided to have this kind of confidence by faith. I do it because I believe God wants me to and because it is important to the fulfillment of His plan, and you can do it too.
Now here is another even more amazing Scripture:
Put Me in remembrance [remind Me of your merits]; let us plead and argue together. Set forth your case, that you may be justified (proved right).
Isaiah 43:26
Being “in Christ” is the one true merit that we need, based on the New Covenant. God will bless us because we believe in His Son, Jesus. True confidence presses in and won’t let go of God. Jacob wrestled with the angel of the Lord all night and refused to let him go until God blessed him.
And Jacob was left alone, and a Man wrestled with him until daybreak.
And when [the Man] saw that He did not prevail against [Jacob], He touched the hollow of his thigh; and Jacob’s thigh was put out of joint as he wrestled with Him.
Then He said, Let Me go, for day is breaking. But [Jacob] said, I will not let You go unless You declare a blessing upon me.
Genesis 32:24–26
Jacob had been a cheat, a liar, and a swindler, but he wanted to make things right with God and his brother Esau whose birthright he had stolen. He obviously had the confidence in God to wrestle with Him until he received a blessing. This is shocking to those of us who have had difficulty being bold in prayer or in our approach to God. But here it is in black-and-white, written in God’s Word. Jacob’s confidence and boldness won him power with God. I guess God liked his confident attitude!
There are other examples of this in the Bible. There is the parable of the widow who went to the unjust judge and kept pestering him until he vindicated her. She wore down an unjust judge (Luke 18:1–8). How much more will our just God do for those who press and won’t give up? Jesus began this parable by saying that His disciples “ought always to pray and not to turn coward (faint, lose heart, and give up).” He wanted them to press with confidence, and He wants us to do the same thing. Remember, our confidence isn’t in ourselves, it is in Christ. We should always keep in mind that without Him, we are nothing and can do nothing that merits anything, but through Him we have a right to go to God boldly in Jesus’ Name.
Without confidence we are like jet airliners with no fuel. We just sit and do nothing. But with confidence we can go places and take people with us. We can enjoy our journey in life because at all times we have blessed rest and quiet for our souls.
Study confidence until you are firmly fixed in faith that God does indeed want you to live with it. Refuse to do without it. Make it a habit!