(The video above is powerful. Please watch it! It is 4-minutes long. In addition, the focus of my blog post is on “Embracing Your Confident” as a means of accessing your authority and power in Messiah. It is from the perspective of confusing CONFIDENCE with arrogance and pride. I pray that this series encourages you.)
Copyright 2014 Theresa Harvard Johnson
A couple of weeks ago, the Lord began ministering to me about the power of confidence. It is through this confidence that you and I are able to access our authority in Yeshua and access POWER. Confidence works with faith. Confidence strengthens us in overcoming fear. The trouble is, so many of us have given our confidence away and exchanged it for false humility –the devaluing of the gifts of God that are within us, and causing the extraordinary “in you” to become common.
I had to repent for this – as I had walked this way for a very long time. In truth, it was an effort to lower who I was so that others might be more comfortable around me. It was the epitome of compromise, the very altar the Lord had called the ministry entrusted to me to destroy. It was an attempt on my part to people please, fit in. (If you want to take a look at the extreme side of this, read Luke 9:26.)
If the truth be told, a little bit of this rests in a many of God’s people, even leaders who seem to have it all in and under control. My transparency here is meant to help you – but also free me even more. It is to challenge you to truly live YOUR LIFE unapologetically before God. These past two or three years have been ones in which I have really, really sought to walk fully into accepting “all of the Theresa – especially her spiritual calling – from God.” It has been a season of UNLEASHING my true self before a Holy God.
Guess what? You are being called into this place as well.
In my quiet time with Father some time ago, he had me repeat this phrase over and over again in the midst of my repentance. I sobbed as I did so. Why? Because I came to the realization that I was ashamed this identity. I did not want this – any of it. By the prompting of Holy Spirit, I began declaring privately:
“I am God’s emissary. I carry within me a message of pure ministry and immersion that I cannot deny, and will never again fear, be afraid of or stand ashamed of before you God. I will never devalue myself so that people will like me or lower my standards to make others feel better. I will be who God created me to be!”
For the first time, I began to understand “confidence” as the Apostle Paul taught it through his life and message. In 1 Corinthians 9:1 he stated this in defense of his calling: “Am I not a free man? Am I not an emissary of the Messiah? Haven’t I seen Yeshua our Lord? And aren’t you yourselves the result of my work for the Lord? Even if to others I am not an emissary, at least I am to you; for you are living proof that I am the Lord’s emissary. That is my defense when people put me under examination.”
Yes, I know the context here is different… but the principle is indeed in the midst. The challenge we face is knowing how to rightly embrace our specific portion so that we can rely on GOD alone – whatever that might look like to you in right fellowship with Him.
The Hebrew word for confidence is Strong’s H982, batach. The Greek word pepoithēsis, Strong’s G4006, and it has the same meaning which is to trust, trust in, to have confidence, be confident, to be bold and to be secure. It carries all of this weight and so much more. As the Lord ministered this message to me, I saw an infant in his mother’s arms. He showed me “the natural and spiritual” expectation of trust in this picture. You see, this infant has an internal, involuntary expectation of being cared for by the mother. The child is supernaturally built to have confidence in the mother’s ability to fulfill the task of care and nurturing. It is innate, natural. God is bringing his sons back to this place in every area of their lives. I, for one, believe it is fully achievable. This analogy of baby and mother is powerful when we consider the kind of confidence we are reminded of having in Father.
In Babylon – the systems of this world, confidence is based on a person’s trust, belief and reliance on their own perceived abilities, strengths and authority. We often refer to it as self-confidence or self-reliance. The other types of confidence is when we place trust, belief and reliance in others or in systems.
Among the people of God, confidence is based on our trust, belief and reliance on God and his known and proven abilities, strengths and authority. The other type of confidence we are to have among the Body is a confidence in “the Spirit of God” living on the inside of others. This type of confidence is weaved in every aspect of scripture and revelation especially as it relates to discernment.
Several powerful scriptures point to this:
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Philippians 3:3 CJB, “For it is we who are the Circumcised, we who worship by the Spirit of God and make our boast in the Messiah Yeshua! We do not put confidence in human qualifications…”
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Philippians 4:13 CJB, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.”
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Psalm 146:3 CJB, “Don’t put your trust in princes or in mortals, who cannot help.”
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2 Corinthians 3:4-6 CJB, “Such is the confidence we have through the Messiah toward God. It is not that we are competent in ourselves to count anything as having come from us; on the contrary, our competence is from God. He has even made us competent to be workers serving a New Covenant, the essence of which is not a written text but the Spirit. For the written text brings death, but the Spirit gives life.”
Meditate on these scriptures. Will Holy Spirit leading you, seriously consider areas in your life where you have not maintained your confidence or where you have stood in compromise concerning “WHO YOU ARE.” You saw my earnest example above. It’s not easy admitting the sin in your life – and yes, not believing everything God has spoken concerning you is indeed an aspect of sin. Then, ask Holy Spirit to help you embrace and walkout Godly confidence.
Part II: Godly Confidence Vs. Pride, Arrogance and False Humility
