What are you proud of? Where does your confidence lie?
As those who trust and love the Lord Jesus, there is certainty in who we are and who we trust. Because the Lord Jesus has done everything necessary to save us, we really don’t need to worry about trying to save ourselves. There is a huge joy and privilege to receiving such amazing grace and a responsibility to respond to that grace by continuing to turn to Jesus as Lord, with all that implies for our lives, identities and confidence.
The problem is that we are almost always drawn to try to fit-in with the dominant voices around us:
Last Sunday morning we heard how false-teachers had drawn Christians to believe the lie of legalism to win the praise of others and avoid being persecuted. Yet dominant voices can just as easily point in other directions: almost imperceptibly we can find ourselves ignoring what God says is His Word the Bible and living and compromising our thinking and behaviour so as not to be noticed.
The apostle Paul’s answer to all such pressure was to point again to the Lord Jesus and with great faith write:
May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. (Gal 6:14)
He understood that his identity and confidence must not be in himself or what others think of him but in the Lord Jesus and what He has done. Only Jesus can save us from Hell for Heaven. There is NOTHING else more important and indeed, such certainty is a comfort in sorrow and a challenge when we’re tempted.
Whatever we are facing this week, put your confidence in Jesus!
Spencer Shaw