The Evil of Self-Confidence
This just in from my friend, Dave McCarty:
The devil wants me self-confident, not Jesus-confident. We self-confidents don't live as though we need Jesus, so prayer is not central to our daily life: we don't ask, and we don't thank, about everything. We assume or we willfully do. Only we self-confidents have problems with idolatry. To have an idol, one has to lean on his own understanding to know what's best, so he can attempt to control the outcome. Only we self-confidents are worriers, are agendified, are willful, are prideful, are self-absorbed, are obsessive about being strong, and passionate about avoiding weakness, dependency.
Jesus-dependents, the un-confidents, are the meek, the humble, the prayerful, the loving, the self-forgetting, the relaxed, the funloving, the free, not afraid of failure, living with the kind of reckless abandon that enables humans to perform optimally. Jesus-confidents are easy to love. Hearts go out to them.How do I move from being self-confident to Jesus-confident? By God's Spirit, convicting me afresh of my self-reliance, so I run back to Jesus, confessing my sin of unbelief, receiving His welcoming embrace. Ahhh.
Jesus-dependents, the un-confidents, are the meek, the humble, the prayerful, the loving, the self-forgetting, the relaxed, the funloving, the free, not afraid of failure, living with the kind of reckless abandon that enables humans to perform optimally. Jesus-confidents are easy to love. Hearts go out to them.How do I move from being self-confident to Jesus-confident? By God's Spirit, convicting me afresh of my self-reliance, so I run back to Jesus, confessing my sin of unbelief, receiving His welcoming embrace. Ahhh.
As Paul said in Philippians 3:3, "For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh." And in Galatians 6:14, "Far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ..."
