Self-Confidence

4:13 "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."

There is a very gigantic difference between what Paul is talking about here and the human quality we call self-confidence. Self-confidence says, "I can do all things." Paul says "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." The two are as different as lightning and lightning bugs.

Both have confidence in common. But one is confidence in self. The other is confidence in God.

Godly confidence, in fact, repudiates self-confidence. Jesus said, "Apart from me you can do nothing." (John 15:5) In ourselves we are useless, we can do nothing good (Rom.3:12). But with Christ, all things are possible for us.

And so we must realize both our weakness in ourselves and our strength in Him. We must "be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might." (Eph.6:10)

Amazingly, He has chosen to pour the treasure of His grace into weak "jars of clay, to show that this all-surpassing power is from God and not from us." (2Cor.4:7)

It was not by his own personal power that the apostle Paul changed the world through his missionary endeavors. On the contrary, he himself says, "I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me." (Col.1:28-29)

I need to wake up each morning and remember that I am "wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked," (Rev.3:17) but that there is a God "who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, ACCORDING TO THE POWER THAT WORKS WITHIN US..." (Eph.3:20)

Dear Father, I am so easily impressed by my own accomplishments and so slow to be impressed by Your power and grace! All my accomplishments are filthy rags. Only what Christ does through me is good and true and worthwhile. May He increase and may I decrease. I renounce my self-confidence, which is only sinful pride, and I marvel at Your power, that can work even in and through a weak vessel like me. May my life be evidence that there is an almighty God who captures and fills men with His power.