Confidence in Christ

What does it mean to have confidence in Christ? As a basketball player, specifically a ‘sharpshooter’, confidence is everything. Whether I shoot with the same shooting mechanics or not, if I’m not confident in my jumper, it’s going to be a brick. Then, after missing multiple shots, my defense and decision-making get worse. My point is, confidence may seem like something that affects just one thing, but it doesn’t just affect one thing, it affects everything. Sometimes during our walk with Christ, we feel like we are “off the road” and feel as though we are separated from Christ. If you haven’t felt this, I guarantee that you will experience it sometime in your life. Sometimes these “off-road” moments can come out of nowhere. One day, you’ll be on a spiritual high, have a good attitude, and feel like the Holy Spirit is greatly involved with your life (which He always is, you just feel Him during the good times), and then all of a sudden, you have a “drop off”. The odd thing is, we may think something like, “I need to be in the Word more” or “I need to talk to God more”, we try to justify why we are struggling, which leads us to stagnation. Lead pastor of Churchome, Judah Smith defined a mature Christian as, “Someone who can wake up to a new day, forget about the sins of the past, for they are already forgiven, and continue on in their pursuing of Christ (something like that, anyways).” If we only focus on how we messed up and how we can fix these problems, we aren’t going to grow. Yes, we are the ones who have to choose to ask for forgiveness, but it’s not our job to fix our problems, Jesus already did that a couple thousand years ago. For us to say these things is like the same as saying, “God, I got this.” I don’t know about you, but that sounds extremely prideful. That’s like saying, “who’s the strong one again? Oh yeah...not you, but me.” No, that’s not the way it is supposed to be. If God is God, let God be God. Let the love of His sacrifice pull you back “on the road”. That’s the amazing part of Jesus’ love. It meets us where we are. We don’t have to strive, but we are to let His love pull us in. Our confidence is found in Christ, not ourselves.

-Jack Hilsher

“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded.”

‭‭Hebrews‬ ‭10:35‬ ‭(NIV‬‬)