Cultivating Kingdom Confidence
Are you a confident person?
I’m not talking about pride or arrogance, but confidence. They look quite different in other people, and they feel quite different in ourselves. I know that for me, pride often takes the misleading voice of false humility. I make myself low, rejecting myself before anyone else can, and refuse to forgive myself for offences big and small. This is called false humility because it’s a twisted copy of true humility, something we should all value and pursue. What does false humility have to do with pride? They seem like extreme opposites! That’s the trick of the enemy, concealing the root (pride) by preying on our good intentions (humility) and adding twists through our wounds (rejection, fear, anxiety, etc). You see, what false humility is really saying is, “what I say about myself is more true than what God says about me”. When I refuse to forgive myself, and God has already forgiven me, I am setting myself above God. (By the way, this is the same when we refuse to forgive other people). Pride is the root of much of our anguish and challenges in relationships.
If you have ever struggled with pride or false humility, it can be confusing to discern between true and false humility. The best measuring stick is always the person of Jesus. He is a great example of someone who had cultivated confidence, but was not operating in pride or arrogance. We see throughout the gospels that Jesus walked with a quiet confidence. He knew who He was in every room (or field) He walked into. There is no hint of false humility in Christ, no matter how much He was rejected or ridiculed. It’s part of what makes Him so attractive.
The problem that Jesus often faced when He walked into a room/field, is that He knew He would not meet the expectations that people had for Him. He was misunderstood, and people were constantly asking Him to be someone He was not. A lot of people wanted Him to be more religious. And a lot of other people wanted Him to be more political. More powerful. There were heavy expectations on Him everywhere He went, and even the people closest to Him, the disciples that partnered every day in ministry, even they didn’t understand who He was.
But it didn’t seem to bother Him! He continued to walk in a Kingdom confidence, a true humility that was unfazed when others misunderstood and misinterpreted Him. If there is anyone in the history of the world who should be focused on proving their identity, it should be Jesus Christ. Don’t you think? For centuries after, people will debate His true identity. There’s so much at stake, you would think He would spend more time or energy trying to convince people He was the Christ. But we don’t see that, we see Him walking in Kingdom confidence, focused on living His identity, not convincing others to acknowledge it.
A friend told me the other day that it’s not my job to convince anyone who I am. I think it’s a great word for all of us - we don’t need to spend our time and energy convincing people of our identity. We need to live it honestly, and to do that we must first know it. Just as Jesus did, taking time before He stepped out to connect with His Father to hear from Him about who He was. Pulling away constantly to be alone to pray, to reconnect with His Father. Quietly walking into every room and field with the knowledge of who His Father said He was, Jesus lived His identity and let others freely choose what they believed about Him.
We have to remember too that Jesus doesn’t set impossible standards - He was a living example of what’s possible for each and every one of us. Cultivating Kingdom confidence is not only possible, but Jesus is waiting to help us walk in it each and every day. I haven’t done this well, but am instead of dwelling on how I’ve messed up, I’m choosing to focus on what’s possible today. Will you join me?
