In this post we continue to look at True Confidence and what having true confidence means. As we said before, many times we put our confidence in worldly items or in our own works however Paul had a different opinion.
"I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus." - Philippians 3:14
Most of the time when we hear the word Confidence it is usually preceded by the word "self". Self Confidence. The secular world tries to tell us that if we dig down deep, if we just discipline ourselves enough, if we just read another self-help book we'll figure it out on our own and conquer all of our problems.
This type of thinking was the same thinking that led me to the most destructive and painful time in my life. The truth is we don't need more self confidence, we need confidence in God.
"I can do all things..."
When I was a child I was told, you can do anything you want, you can be the President of the United States if you just work hard and believe in yourself.
Self-help books tell us to search deep inside, find our inner strength and we can succeed.
But the Bible tells us a different story, in Philippians Chapters 3-4.
Paul was trying to tell the church not to put there faith in false measures or in themselves. He even illustrates this in Philippians 3:3-6 by saying that by all their measures, he was an impressive man. He was from the best tribe, he was a Pharisee and he was following God's laws better than most men.
Then Paul goes on further to say that all these worldly measures that impressed man so much he considered them rubbish next to knowing God.
When you lose your job, when a loved one dies, when you lose thousands of dollars in one day because of the current financial crisis, you can't dig down deep inside and find strength in yourself?
All of the worlds measuring sticks and self-help lingo cannot help you when you put them up against eternity.
Instead, Paul tells them to put their confidence in a relationship with Jesus.
So the real question is where do our confidences lay?