SOUNDING OUT:
Always Confident! Are You Kidding?
Most
people believe confidence is a by-product of experience,
especially in the initial stages of learning something.
Whether it’s riding a bike, driving a car, or
flying a plane, the more you do something successfully
the more confident you become. However traumatic failure
or bad experience can deter one from continuing to do
the things that they had previously done with confidence.
Most of us have heard the proverbial exhortation to
“Get back on the horse!” after a hurtful
fall.
Paul certainly had great confidence in his ministry.
However, it was not due to his experience. It was due
to the integrity of the Word of God on which he relied.
II Corinthians
5:6-8:
Therefore we are always confident, knowing
that, whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent
from the Lord:
7 (For we walk by faith,
not by sight:)
8 We are confident, I say,
and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to
be present with the Lord.
Isn’t that exciting?
We too can be “always confident, knowing.…”
That was knowing, not hoping, not guessing,
not wondering maybe it’s so. When we believe in
the integrity of God’s Word, knowing what it says
provides a sure foundation on which to act. “Always
confident!’ What a way to live.
While these verses are written in the context
of our hope of the return of Christ and enjoying our
new bodies in the presence of the Lord, the principle
that confidence comes from knowing the truth applies
in all matters of life. We are not confident because
of what we see. We are confident because the truth of
the Word sets us free to live for God without any doubt
or worry.
