I've got confidence

It was my first year of high school.  The school was brand new, well part of it was.  The rest of it was still under construction.  We made out the best we could while construction continued.  The newness of the building was the awe of students, teachers and even visitors. 

Our football team that year was not ranked very high.  We literally had half a team to work with, because now we were the second high school in town, and both teams suffered as the student numbers were divided into two schools instead of one. 

The football uniforms were brand new, as were the band and cheerleader uniforms.  We had such high hopes for our new school.  We were proud with school spirit and couldn't wait for our first public appearance.  But the schedule called for us to face one of the toughest teams in the state. Everyone knew we would get beat..........bad!

Something quite different happened.  The ranked team we played was narrowly defeated by our new and untested team. The coach of the team we beat was quoted in just about every sports report in the state, saying, "We got beat because we were overconfident."

One thing our team didn't have was the confidence we could win, but the other team was overly confident they would win without any effort.  That's dangerous no matter what the game. 

Is the subject of our confidence connected to our Christianity?  The Bible has some things to say about it.  In Philippians 3:3 Paul warns us to avoid putting our confidence in the flesh.  He made that warning because some had their confidence in themselves, or their ancestry, or even in their financial status.

In Romans, this same Paul lets us in on a biblical truth, "Those who put their trust in the Lord will never be ashamed."  So these two references indicate being confident is good as long as our confidence is placed correctly. 

Here are some additional scriptural references on the subject. 

Psalm 118:8  "It is better to trust in the Lord rather than to put confidence in man."

1 John 3:2  "Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know(have confidence) that when Christ appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is."

Philippians 1:6  "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ"

And in Galatians, Paul expressed his confidence that God would help them be strong in the truth.

Are you a confident person?  Upon what is your confidence based?  The Bible would have us to know our confidence is not in ourselves, but should always be placed in God.  This deserves more than lip-service.  It's a complete surrender our ourselves to God, while placing our lives under his direction.  After all, he made us, he gave his Son to save us, and he calls us into his eternal family.  There is your confidence. 

<ronbwriting@gmail.com>