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I’d like to ask you to picture two scenes. Picture the Apostle Peter as he stood outside the gate at Jesus’ trial and denies that he ever knew Jesus, denying it with cursing and swearing. And only a few short hours earlier he had been totally confident that he never would do that—never! Now, picture a second scene. Peter healing the lame man, who goes leaping and jumping into the temple, praising God for his healing.
What happened to the Apostle Peter in the few intervening days between those two scenes? In the first instance, though totally self-confident, he had failed miserably. In the second scene, he displays a confident approach, and yet the results are quite different. He was not a miserable failure.
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. You handed him over to be killed, and you disowned him before Pilate, though he had decided to let him go… 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, 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 of a man. He didn’t walk around with his head hanging down; quite the opposite. He was more bold than ever before, because he was controlled by God and his confidence was in someone much more capable and powerful than himself.
My dear friend, self-confidence is a deceptive allurement that this world system has fostered upon us. Maybe like Peter, you have gone from one sad experience to another, as your self-confidence fell apart. Or maybe your self-confidence brought some temporary achievements, you’ve discovered that it is so fragile and so easily intimidated, that it falls apart at the first adverse wind that comes along.
The good news is, you don’t need that undependable self-confidence, you need God-confidence, and you can have it.