confidence
from 1 Corinthians 10 in The Message:
Don’t be so naïve and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.
As I was reading this I remembered something Dallas Willard said about saints being the ones who consume the most grace. I think he said something like ‘Grace becomes like air.’ Anyway, I made the connection that we can get to feeling pretty good about ourselves and how much progress we’ve made in this following Jesus.
We get to a point where we think we can coast or ‘ride the wave’ of our progress. But that is precisely the moment when we forget where our confidence is supposed to lie. To return to Dallas’ image of breathing, it’s like we look at ourselves and think, “I’ve come pretty far in learning how to breath…I think I’ll take a break for a little while.” It’s nonsense!
Every day we (I) need to wake up and decide to be consumers of grace. To open our hearts before we open our eyes and decide to live, not in self-confidence (“I can do better today”), but in God-confidence (“Deliver me from the evil one”).
I thought I had this stuff figured out already. It’s nice to know I still have a lot to learn. It’s nice to wake up from my naïve self-confidence. It’s nice to see God is always bigger than we think.
Don’t be so naïve and self-confident. You’re not exempt. You could fall flat on your face as easily as anyone else. Forget about self-confidence; it’s useless. Cultivate God-confidence.
As I was reading this I remembered something Dallas Willard said about saints being the ones who consume the most grace. I think he said something like ‘Grace becomes like air.’ Anyway, I made the connection that we can get to feeling pretty good about ourselves and how much progress we’ve made in this following Jesus.
We get to a point where we think we can coast or ‘ride the wave’ of our progress. But that is precisely the moment when we forget where our confidence is supposed to lie. To return to Dallas’ image of breathing, it’s like we look at ourselves and think, “I’ve come pretty far in learning how to breath…I think I’ll take a break for a little while.” It’s nonsense!
Every day we (I) need to wake up and decide to be consumers of grace. To open our hearts before we open our eyes and decide to live, not in self-confidence (“I can do better today”), but in God-confidence (“Deliver me from the evil one”).
I thought I had this stuff figured out already. It’s nice to know I still have a lot to learn. It’s nice to wake up from my naïve self-confidence. It’s nice to see God is always bigger than we think.
posted by joel at 8:06 AM
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