Steve & Shirley
“Look at what is before your eyes. If you are confident that you belong to Christ, remind yourself of this.” Â Excerpt from 2 Corinthians 10:7-11
There are many kinds of confidence, some of them appropriate to behold and some of them downright annoying. Admit it, you know someone, somewhere, who is confident for all the wrong reasons. We all do.
There’s the guy who struts around because he makes more money than his neighbors. There’s the family that thinks they know it all because they have been to Europe. There’s the person who is certain that everyone wants to listen to her, because she knows she is a brilliant speaker. But there’s just one small problem. She isn’t.
There’s the vain fashionista who tells everyone else what to wear. There’s the martyr who is certain she works harder than anyone else. And of course, in any gathering, there’s the self-proclaimed expert on politics who won’t shut up. They may have confidence, but it’s profoundly misplaced.
In American society, we are forever talking about how to boost our own self-esteem. But when the talk show hosts tell us we need to love ourselves more, I want to respond: Do you really want to say that to everybody? I’m just not sure it’s a universal problem.
So today, Paul tells us to look at what is before our eyes, and to see ourselves accurately. Is your confidence based on something real? What is real is knowing that you belong to a loving Christ. What is not real is thinking you are better than everyone else. We can all use the occasional cosmic reality check.
Dear Lord, you came to earth in humility and took a special interest in the meek and the mild. Let my confidence come from following you in love, and not from self-serving pursuits, in and through Jesus. Amen.
Grace and Peace
Steve
PS: The TWC cable guy got here around 7:30 last night, worked about a half hour, got everything working properly, and was very nice. Guess what? He was a retired Marine. Semper Fi! He told us all the service guys are contact people hired by TWC and that they have very poor communication between TWC and the contact techs. Sounds almost biblical (Right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing.) BTW – James Howell preached on accepting everyone in church… I bet that includes the cable guy and TWC.
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