Confidence

Where does a person's spiritual confidence come from? What makes a person believe that they are in a right relationship with God? There are many answers to these questions, but most of them are incorrect. It is better to say that most answers don't discuss the right source of confidence.

Some will place their confidence in what they do. They have it all worked out in their mind. They think that God is impressed with their externally righteous lifestyles. However, God looks at the heart and weighs the motives. Besides, all our righteousness is as filthy rags.

Some will place their confidence in a decision at some point in the past. They prayed a prayer or made a public profession during a revival or a VBS. They always look to that moment as the source of their confidence. They rarely think to check and see if that "decision" made any difference in their life.

Others will place their confidence in an event. For some it is when they walked the aisle at church, and for others it is goes back to their baptism. It might even be an emotional experience that in which they anchor their confidence.

However, all of these fail to produce genuine confidence, because they focus on the wrong things. Our confidence should come from an abiding trust in the Lord. We are righteous before God not because we did something or do something or said something, but because we trust that Christ paid the penalty for our sin and upholds us before the Father.

Our confidence is made sure as we examine our profession to see if we have borne fruit. We look for fruit that is consistent with repentance and walking in the Spirit. That fruit is faith, peace, kindness, joy, patience, perseverance, love, and self-control. Genuine faith, which produces confidence within us, always comes with the fruit of transformed life. When we see the evidences of the Spirit within our life we can have confidence that we are a child of God. This abiding, growing, obedient life should be the source of our confidence.