Confidence
Be Strong, Be Well — Wednesday, March 3, 2021
Confidence is something we learn early on in life. The more we attempted to do, the more we experienced and learned. The more success we had, the more confidence we built up to go on to do even greater things. Confidence is necessary to succeed in this life.
In our spiritual lives, confidence is something we cannot do without, but we need to understand confidence comes from God and His word.
Back in the days of Hezekiah, the king of Judah had been paying large sums of gold and silver to the king of Assyria. After a while, the Assyrian king wanted everything that was left, and came against the kingdom of Judah, surrounding Jerusalem. Great fear came upon the Jews and all who came into the city to find refuge.
The diplomat for the Assyrian king came near to the city and hollered up to the Jewish leaders on the wall, trying to intimidate them. He said, “Say now to Hezekiah, ‘Thus says the great king, the king of Assyria: “What confidence is this in which you trust?” (2 Kings 18:19).
His speech was very lengthy with all kinds of discouraging, threatening words, as well as blasphemy against the God of heaven. He continued, “Thus you shall speak to Hezekiah king of Judah, saying: ‘Do not let your God in whom you trust deceive you, saying, “Jerusalem shall not be given into the hand of the king of Assyria.” (2 Kings 19:10).
When all hope seemed to be lost, the prophet Isaiah told the Jewish leaders, God was in charge and the king of Assyria would be defeated. Isaiah told them, “Thus you shall say to your master, ‘Thus says the LORD: “Do not be afraid of the words which you have heard, with which the servants of the king of Assyria have blasphemed Me. Surely I will send a spirit upon him, and he shall hear a rumor and return to his own land; and I will cause him to fall by the sword in his own land” (2 Kings 19:6, 7).
After hearing both Isaiah’s and the enemy’s messages, Hezekiah had the courage and confidence to pray to God for deliverance. “Now therefore, O LORD our God, I pray, save us from his hand, that all the kingdoms of the earth may know that You are the LORD God, You alone” (2 Kings 19:19).
God heard his prayer, and answered it. 185 thousand Assyrian soldiers were found dead over the course of one night. King Sennacherib returned home, only to be killed by his own sons while worshiping in the temple of his pagan god.
In this lengthy story there’s a practical application. “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes” (Psalm 118:8–9).
With all the confusion in the world today—the push to lower the righteous and holy standards of God in morality issues, our concern in world affairs, in our own squabbling government, even with the virus and those in the medical field who cannot agree, we need assurance and confidence. These things are only found in God, His Son, the Holy Spirit, and His Holy Word.
“In the fear of the Lord there is strong confidence, And His children will have a place of refuge” (Proverbs 14:26). “But Christ as a Son over His own house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end” (Hebrews 3:6).
Like Hezekiah, let’s bow before God and fervently pray for what we need, and the good we want to see accomplished in this world. As John recorded, “Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us” (1 John 5:14). —Chris