Competitive Confidence

As an intensely competitive individual, it is a difficult admission to assert my own helplessness before the Lord.  However, this is precisely how I have felt lately: helpless.  Throughout my life I desire to make God supreme and to commit myself wholeheartedly to the commandments of the Lord.  But I confess that my method for being a committed follower of Christ is based on my own power and exertion of self will.  It is thus with great, although predictable regret that I am forced to admit repeated failures of behavior and sin.

My issue is not, as it were, my intention to live a life of obedience; it is the fact that I attempt to do it in my own strength.  God doesn't want me to try harder.  He isn't interested in my effort.  He is most interested in my faith.

But how does this faith translate to obedience?  Focus.

I have found that if I remain focused on Christ in faith–what He has done and the grace He showed at the cross–sin and self are not even in view.  It is when I am concerned with myself that sins and behaviors present themselves.

In the end, then, the matter at hand is one of focus: focus on God or on myself.  There is only one good answer here...

When The Going Gets Tough is God Enough?

Only a child or a fool would ever say that life isn't hard.  It is.  But the measure of a person is not how much they have to deal with but, rather, how much they can persevere and still remain strong and joyful.

It is with this context that I ask the question: when the going gets tough, is God enough?

Where is our confidence when everything is overwhelming?  Where do we find comfort when life is so uncomfortable?  Where is our strength when we have no strength?

Only God, the Eternal One, is sufficient to maintain us when life is so tumultuous and uncertain.  Only He is the sure source of relief, strength, and support in all of life's turmoil.  There is no greater place to place our confidence than firmly in God.

Let us never forget this!

Psalm 118:5-6–Comfort in Distress

Psalm 118:5-6–"Out of my distress I called on the Lord; the Lord answered me and set me free.  The Lord is on my side; I will not fear.  What can man do to me?"

Every human who has lived or who will ever live will experience distress.  It is not outlandish to claim that distress is the human condition.  But this is but a portion of the story.  As Christians, we understand that the trials and stresses of this life are as a result of sin.  We also assert that distress and tribulation are but temporary discomforts that pale in comparison to the vast awesomeness of God and His goodness. This means, at the very least, that when we are held under the seemingly-insurmountable weight of life, that we can have a confident hope in the knowledge of God.  We can face distress with hearts solidified not because we feel so strong ourselves, on the contrary!  We understand that our confidence rests solely on the greatness of the Lord God Almighty!

Let us never, not ever forget this.

1 John 5:14-15–Confidence to Come Towards God

1 John 5:14-15: "And this is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.  And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked Him."

This is an amazing passage but it is often misrepresented.  We hear the "whatever we ask, we know that we have," but we neglect the more important, "if we ask anything according to His will He hears us.  In case you missed it (I am, of course, speaking to myself too), the pertinent part of our asking is that it is according to His will.

While we can easily ignore this it is the most important part of coming to God with requests: that our desires and appeals that we bring before God run according to His will.  This is essential.  We can not and should not expect that God would condone or even support sinfulness in any sense.  This includes, at the very least, greed, lust, wantonness, et al.

It is as we are being sanctified that the utter requests of our heart begin to run inline with the will of God.  This is what sanctification is all about and there is nothing more beautiful than that!  Amen that God would see fit to provide us the desires of our hearts as He transforms our hearts' desires to be His!

Dancing in the Rainstorms of Life

Robert had never even been out of the country when he took his new position in Tokyo, Japan.  He was a product of southwestern America, where rain is scare and the sun is hot and clear.  Because of the obvious cultural distance and because he didn't want to be alone, Robert found a local man about the same age, Akiko Saitou, to be his roommate.

All was going well until the first earthquake and rain.  Japan is, essentially, a volcanic island that has never fully stabilized.  And, to a foreigner, this can be quite disconcerting, particularly when most of the locals view earthquakes and storms with a certain sense of apathetic reverence.  However, when the first real tsunami-like rains hit, Robert was dumbfounded.

In fact, Robert spent that first rainy season learning how to duck under canopies with ninja-like speed.  He thought that he was starting to fit in except that Akiko would always point and laugh at the ridiculousness exhibited by his wimpy, American roommate.  This sort of display happened every time the rains came with their tempestuous force, so that by the end of the season Robert had determined to find out why the Japanese were so calm during such torrential downpours.

Finally, on one such rainfall, after Akiko's usual chortles at Robert's unusual fear of rain storms, Robert went to Akiko and asked him, "Why is everyone here so calm when the sky is falling?  How can you be so cavalier when the rain is pounding like this?"  Akiko smiled at his roommate and, with a laugh, said in his decent but broken English, "My friend, you can spend all your life trying to dodge  and hide from the rain.  Or, you can simply learn to dance in it like the rest of us!"

Storms of this life are continuously stirring and pouring over our shoulders, filling our eyes with water and our hands with puddles.  A storm is anything in life that can break us down and damage us with its constant pommeling.  The trick is, as shared by Akiko above, to stop wasting so much energy fearing the rain and come to the place when you can dance in it.

The essence of this is sincere devotion and faith in God.  If we, when under stressful duress, will simply trust that God is who He is.  Needless to say, this is a daily if not momentarily exercise in faithfulness.  This will equip us with the lenses of God and His holiness that can make the most difficult of life's decisions seem as whim and frivolity compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ.  Let us then take this mind among us to depend on God so as to dance in the rainstorms of life!

Heavenly Cure for Depression

The statistics are staggering.  Every year over that past several decades, more and more people, both young and old, are diagnosed with various forms of depression.  The prescription drug industry has ballooned into one of the largest in the world.  The truth is, depression has permeated throughout our culture that if you are not or have nto dealt with depression personally, you certainly have friends and loved ones who have.

Depression, the whole ordeal of being depressed, is a introspective endeavor.  One becomes so engulfed with themselves that a deep, dark lens of discouragement and apathy falls like a pall over his or her life.  The affect is that the person is left helpless, hampered, and handicapped to live.  And be it self-destruction, self-loathing, seclusion, self-pity, self-love, or at the worst, suicide, a depressed person will inevitably seek refuge from somewhere for relief from their pain.

The answer to such a despondent search is God.  In the end, God and He alone, is the alleviator of depression.  He is love and the Comforter for all our ills.  If we or someone close to us is struggling with depression or the like, the only cure is God.  Although the step to that relief is easy in theory, it can be challenging in execution: humility.  Only when we stop spending all of our time thinking about ourselves and we humble ourselves before the Holy Lord will we be blessed with real relief and actual comfort, straight from the Lord Almighty.

The issue is: what do we do when we are feeling depressed?  The answer is clear and accessible: seek after God, the source of all joy, love, and comfort.  This is not brain surgery but it does take humility on our part.  Only when we fall prostrate before God Himself will we be able to stop looking at the imperfection of ourselves and start looking at that which is perfect: God.  Let us then take this to heart when dealing with such challenging issues as depression and to seek after God to light our paths during the dark times!

Courage in Christ

On a cold early spring day, April 19th, a relatively small band of poorly outfitted militiamen stood behind their worn muskets, facing nearly 1000 well-armed, well-trained Red Coats.  This moment in 1775 would mark the beginning of a war revolutionary for its struggle for freedom from the imposed tyranny taxation without representation and over personal human rights so refused by a detached aristocracy.  Even though the scraggly militia was nearly untrained and badly armed, they stood strong with courage.

The militia men were victorious with their worn muskets and ample courage.  But their victory fades in comparison with the victory we have have through Christ.  This victory is perfect and eternal.  We have merely to come to Christ in faith to draw from His courage stores in order that we may be perfectly courageous in any circumstance.

The biblical model of courage relies on the Lord alone as our source.  For instance, the book of Psalms says that we are to be strong and take heart when we are afraid and to place our strength in the Lord (Psa. 27:1, 31:24, 56:3-4). It is then clear that a christian's courage is derived, not in and of something from within ourselves, but is to be taken from the infinite and eternal well which is our Holy Lord.

Paul in his letter to the Ephesians reminds us that we are like the militiamen at Concord and Lexington facing down our enemy.  But unlike the poorly armed and poorly trained militiamen, we have perfectly formed armor and weapons to fight a battle which is not of the flesh but is if the Spirit.  Therefore, our courage is made sure and secure by Jesus who through the power of the Holy Spirit indwelling in our hearts arms us for every ploy of the evil one.  Let us then draw closer to Him so as to be equipped and courageous for any attack through faith in Christ Jesus!

Security Sown

A sense of security is huge in a world so restless and unsure.  There are countless counterfeit sources of security that vie for our trust: money, houses, military might, people, substances, the list goes on.  In reality though, any source of security that is not found in the Lord is faulty and will inevitably fall short of providing true security.  In order to overcome deficient sources of security, we need to overcome defective understandings of security.

Security, the state of being secure, is measured in two basic ways.  First is the measurement of provision, meaning that security is based on either the ability to garner provision or in the capacity to store provision.  This is one of the reasons wealth and prosperity can give people a sense of false security.  The security of wealth is false because wealth is fickle and timely.  Wealth has a shelf life that extinguishes at death.

God, on the other hand, is the ultimate provider.  He provides amply and sufficiently for our corporeal needs (6:19-34).  We have no need to want or be anxious for our security is measured in the infinite nature of God.  He provides not only for our bodily needs but our spiritual needs as well.  This means the Lord that provides provides eternal provisions that see their fruition after the breaking of this mortal coil.  This is good news.

The second measurement of security is in its protection from fear.  To feel secure is, in essence, to feel no need to be afraid.  Again, it can be seen why military forces are referred to by this measurement of security.  The irony is that the beginning of wisdom is the fear of God, the supreme source of security.  Thus our security comes from acknowledging the Lord for who He is.  Nothing and no one is more powerful than the omnipotent Holy Lord.  Therefore, nothing should ever cause believers to fear because of the sheer power of true security's source.

Lastly, nothing can separate us from the Lord once we are His (Rom. 8:38-39).  And He cares for and secures those that remain in Him (Deut. 33:12; Jer. 29:11).  Because of this, believers should have no reason to fear no matter the circumstances (Psa. 16:5-8, 23:1-4; Heb. 13:6).  Therefore, let us make sure our security in the Lord and in this way be made truly secure.  God desires to be our sole source of security.  We should then press into the Lord to be our security!

A Sure Confidence

Confidence is usually defined as a firm trust and assurance, found either in an internal or an external source.  Using this definition, confidence is then a fount of conviction and faith, whether in self or in another.  For Christians, confidence finds a sure and definite root, which is Christ.  Any other genesis of confidence apart from that which is found in the Lord is thus a lesser confidence that will prove itself wanting and scant in the end.

Rooting confidence in the Lord is a matter of supreme importance.  Drawing our confidence from the well of the Lord offers more than mere surety.  In reality, when we find the basis for our assurance and security in the Lord, we will be most expertly equipped to handle any of life's scenarios and situations.  David writes, in one of the most well-known passages in all of Scripture, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me (Psa. 23:4)."

This is the essence of confidence: no matter what  the overwhelming circumstances of any situation may be, we will be sure and assured in that God is keeping us.  Our ability to press into the Lord and to claim His character as our confidence is reliant on our ability to set aside our own confidence in favor of the Lord.  Simply put, in order for us to secure our confidence in the Lord, we must relinquish the value of our own confidence.  We must let go of self-confidence that has no lasting merit and will fail, in order to grasp confidence in the Lord, which is infinitely sure because it is based on an infinite God.

Scripture supports the value of placing our confidence in the Lord (Pro. 3:26; Psa. 3:6, 27:1-3, 56:4-11, 118:6; Heb. 13:6; 1 John 2:28, 5:14).  The infinitude and omnipotence of the Lord is what makes Him secure and the sole perfect source of confidence. He is the solid rock on which we stand and the place that we place the whole of our trust.  When we do this, we will be made perfectly secure, not because of anything within ourselves, but because of who He is, which is the infinite and holy Lord.

At the final analysis, confidence is one of the most powerful driving forces and sustaining strengths that God has blessed humanity with.  Moreover, confidence is dependent on a source.  Because God is who He is, being omnipotent and infinite, He is the surest and truest source of confidence for all who desire to be truly confident.  If our confidence is not rooted in the Lord, who is imperishable and infinite, but is found in ourselves or others, being perishable and finite, then our confidence will inevitably fail due to the inadequate source of our confidence.  Let us then press in to the Lord as the sole and sure source of our confidence that we might be made secure in any circumstance!