"Confidence"

"Confidence"

   

    God calls believers to live with great confidence in Him, and also in our Christ-enabled capacity to function in a manner that fulfills His will, blesses others, and keeps our hearts in peace.

    "The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer, my God, my strength in whom I will trust" (Psalm 18:2).

    "I can do all things through Christ which strengthenth me" (Philippians 4:13).

    "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee" (Isaiah 26:3).

    We live according to the strength of God rather than our own abilities.  "Be strong in the Lord and in power of His might" (Ephesians 6:10).  However, we do live, that is, we realize our privileged responsibility to actively engage our human faculties and capacities, believing them to be energized by the indwelling Holy Spirit.  Note that Paul confessed, "I can do… through Christ."  The Apostle knew that salvation did not involve annihilation of himself, but rather newness of life in Christ and the actualization of his faculties and capacities.  Paul had "no confidence in the flesh" regarding the independent living of life by his own devices and determinations (Philippians 3:3).  He had much confidence in God, however, and in his God-created and enabled gifts as empowered by the Lord's active and involved presence.  Paul well knew the truth of his Lord's declaration to the disciples: "Without Me, ye can do nothing" (John 15:5).  However, Paul knew even more that he was not without the presence of his Lord: "Christ liveth in me" (Galatians 2:20).  Thus, Paul knew and affirmed "I can."  He was confident in God, and in his relationship with God that makes possible the doing of "all things" that glorify God and genuinely benefit others and ourselves.

    I cannot.  I can… through Christ!  This perspective comprises the New Testament's revelation of a life lived that keeps us from deluded confidence in ourselves, but also prevents the passive paralysis that ensues if we fail to believe how mightily the Holy Spirit enables our humanity to function in terms of His indwelling presence of Divinity.  This is life, the life of God as revealed in the faculties and capacities of those who kneel before Him in faith, and who then arise to walk by Him in the confidence of His promised presence and enabling…

"But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."

(I Corinthians 15:10)

Weekly Memory Verse

     "But by the grace of God I am what I am: and His grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I labored more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me."

(I Corinthians 15:10)