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When I think of a very self-confident person, I think of the Apostle Peter. I’m telling you, he was confident in himself. He was the only disciple who was confident he could walk on water. He was confident in his fishing abilities and knowledge. He was confident that Jesus was wrong to say he was going to die and rebuked him for it. He was totally confident that he, Peter, would never deny Jesus, even if everyone else did. Even when Jesus predicted otherwise, Peter was super-confident that he would never disown Jesus even if he had to die with him.
Peter did not lack self-confidence. However, all that self-confidence failed him at the critical moments of his life. He began to walk on water but very soon started sinking. Self-confidence didn’t keep him up. Self-confidence didn’t fill his empty nets with fish after a long night of fishing. Only when he followed Jesus’ instructions was he able to catch fish. Though he was very confident in rebuking Jesus, Jesus not only did not take his counsel, but he also considered it to be satanically inspired. And within hours of his most confident assertion that he would never deny Jesus, he did so three times with swearing.
Peter’s example tends to give self-confidence a black eye. We’ve been led to believe that self-confidence is the key to success, the one essential you must have to get ahead, to be assertive, to be a leader. But Peter’s experiences could cause one to lose confidence in self-confidence. Didn’t seem to help Peter much when he needed it.
But thank God, that’s not the end of Peter’s story. We see a transformed Peter in the book of Acts. He was still extremely confident, still assertive, still a leader, but the results were very different. You remember the story of Peter and John encountering a lame beggar at the temple. Peter looked at that lame man and said in his most confident manner, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk” (Acts 3:6). And guess what—the man went into the temple walking and leaping and praising God.
When questioned by the religious leaders as to how he had done this, Peter gave a most confident response: “Then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed” (Acts 4:10).
This man Peter, who had failed miserably at every turn when he relied on self-confidence and who had cowardly denied Jesus three times, now stood tall among people who were seeking to harm him and proclaimed to them the gospel of Jesus Christ. Verses 13 and 14 of Acts 4 are very revealing. “When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus. But since they could see the man who had been healed standing there with them, there was nothing they could say.”
Peter’s confidence amazed them but notice that it was not self-confidence. These people knew that Peter was not able to heal this man or speak as he did because of his own education or training. Peter was no longer operating on self-confidence. That had been totally shattered. But his confidence and trust in Jesus Christ the Nazarene gave him a boldness he had never known before, and power. The lame man was healed, he was able to persuade thousands of converts, and he led the early church as they changed the course of history.
What happened to the Apostle Peter in the few intervening days between that sad scene at Jesus’ trial and this victorious display of confidence and success? In the first instance, though totally self-confident, he had failed miserably. In the second, he displays a confident approach, and yet the results are quite different.
What happened was that Peter lost all his self-confidence and gained in its place God-confidence. After he had healed that lame man, he said to the amazed people who were watching, ” “Fellow Israelites, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his servant Jesus.… By faith in the name of Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus’ name and the faith that comes through him that has completely healed him, as you can all see” (Acts 3:12, 13, 16).
When Peter spoke now, he was filled with the Holy Spirit. No more shooting off his mouth as before when he operated out of self-confidence. With the self-confidence destroyed and replaced by God-confidence, with the Holy Spirit controlling him, Peter spoke with great power and was successful in his service for Jesus.
Notice, however, that the loss of self-confidence didn’t turn Peter into a sniveling, cowardly wimp. He didn’t walk around with his head hanging down, quite the opposite. He was bolder than ever before because God controlled him and his confidence was in someone much more capable and powerful than he was.
My dear friends, self-confidence is a deceptive allurement that this world system has fostered upon us. Like Peter, many Christians go from one sad experience to another, as their self-confidence fails them. And even when self-confidence brings some temporary achievements, it is so fragile and so easily intimidated, that it falls apart at the first adverse wind that comes along.
I know because I’ve been there. I spent ten years building my life on self-confidence and my own achievements. I could list the successes I had in the business world during those ten years, and you might think I had done pretty well. I had self-confidence, but it kept falling apart on me all the time. I could put on a good face but underneath in those quiet moments of aloneness, I was anything but confident and I knew I wasn’t doing very well on my own.
I thank God that my self-confidence was shattered many years ago because then I finally turned to my Savior and said, “I just can’t do it anymore. I’m a failure, I can’t cope, I’m an emotional yo-yo, I’m just a mess. In spite of the successes I’ve stacked up in the business world, I’m at the end of my self-confident rope.”
Once that self-confidence was shattered, then I turned back to God. And that’s when the God-confidence began and each day is another opportunity to grow in my trust of God and to operate now in his power instead of my own. But it began when my own self-confidence was destroyed.
Paul wrote to the Philippians: “For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh” (Philippians 3:3). He was reminding his Jewish brothers and sisters that outward rituals and signs are not the evidence of our relationship to God, but we are truly rightly related to God when we are Spirit-controlled, when we find our joy in Jesus Christ, and when we have no confidence in our flesh, in ourselves.
I wonder, have you been on a misguided search for self-confidence? It could be that even though you know God through Jesus Christ, you’ve been running your life by the world’s principles, as I did for so long. Paul wrote to the Galatians “Formerly, when you did not know God, you were slaves to those who by nature are not gods. But now that you know God—or rather are known by God—how is it that you are turning back to those weak and miserable forces? Do you wish to be enslaved by them all over again?” (Galatians 4:8-9).
Why would we want to run on self-confidence when God-confidence is available to us? Can we doubt that God-confidence has much more to offer? Can we deny that self-confidence fails us frequently? Then why do we run back to the world’s weak and miserable principles?
May I suggest that it is because the philosophy of self-confidence looks good and it appears to work for some people. So, we swallow the bait, and are deceived again by the master-liar, the father of lies, our enemy, Satan.
What’s the answer? There’s only one: The shattering of our self-confidence and a decision on our part to replace it with God-confidence. If you’re still running on self-confidence, you can either make a choice to abandon it, or you can keep on until it runs out of gas on its own, which it will eventually do. It is self-destructive and will, sooner or later, collapse. Maybe that’s happened to you already, and you’re now wallowing in the shambles of that failed self-confidence. Either way, if you will choose God-confidence, it can be yours.
To have God-confidence, you must first have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, which requires repentance and a turning away from your sins. If you don’t have that assurance, it is the essential first step. Then, you must pursue knowing God as your highest priority. You must be willing to allow the Holy Spirit to control your life, and that is your choice. Remember that Peter gained God-confidence as he was filled with God’s Holy Spirit. That is available to every Christian. When you are born from above, you receive the Holy Spirit, but it is your choice whether you will allow the Spirit to control your life or not.
If you do, changes will take place in your everyday routine. Priorities will undoubtedly shift. Some good things you’ve been doing may have to go to make room for the time you need with God. That will not happen by accident; it will happen as you purpose in your heart to know God. I can assure you of this, the more you know him, the more confidence you have in him. The more his Word is the central focus of your existence, the more confident you will be.
God-confidence may look the same as self-confidence in some respects, but the big difference is that it is humble confidence. In James 3:13 we read: “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom.” Humility that comes from wisdom—in other words, it is wise to be humble because you recognize your own weaknesses, but that wise humility will give you a confidence that is much stronger, much less dependent on you and your performance, and totally confident on God in you—the Holy Spirit. God-confidence is there even when you fail; even when you are fearful of failing. God-confidence does not rely on your abilities but relies on the truth of God’s Word, where we read in Philippians 1:6:
Being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
You can be totally confident of this—God has begun a good work in you and he will not let you go; he will not fail you; he will never leave you or forsake you. That, my friend, is God-confidence.