Confidence is not Found in Reputation-Building

2 Corinthians 3:1 CSB – Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, like some, letters of recommendation to you or from you?

Proverbs 27:2 CSB – Let another praise you, and not your own mouth — a stranger, and not your own lips.

  • Confidence Killer: Finding Confidence in Other’s Opinions

1 Peter 5:5-6 CSB –God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, so that he may exalt you at the proper time

Luke 14:7-11 CSB – …when he noticed how they would choose the best places for themselves:

“When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, don’t sit in the place of honor, because a more distinguished person than you may have been invited by your host. The one who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this man,’ and then in humiliation, you will proceed to take the lowest place.

10 “But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when the one who invited you comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ You will then be honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”

1 Corinthians 1:18 CSB – For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved.

2 Corinthians 5:9b-10 CSB – …we make it our aim to be pleasing to him. 10 For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each may be repaid for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Be Confident in God’s Work Through You

2 Corinthians 3:2 CSB – You yourselves are our letter, written on our hearts, known and read by everyone.

James 1:25b CSB – [be] a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.

Be Confident because Your Competence Comes From God 

2 Corinthians 3:4-5 CSB – Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God. It is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.

Psalm 118:8-9 CSB – 

It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in humanity.
It is better to take refuge in the Lord
than to trust in nobles.

Psalm 20:7-8 CSB – 

Some take pride in chariots, and others in horses,
but we take pride in the name of the Lord our God.
They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand firm.

Philippians 4:11-13 NLT – I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength

James 4:10 CSB – Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will exalt you.

2 Corinthians 3:4-5 CSB – Such is the confidence we have through Christ before God. It is not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.

Be Confident Resting in Your Freedom in Christ

2 Corinthians 3:6 CSB – He has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the Spirit. For the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.

Romans 3:10-11 CSB – There is no one righteous, not even one.
11 There is no one who understands;
there is no one who seeks God.

Ephesians 2:1-5 CSB – And you were dead in your trespasses and sins in which you previously walked according to the ways of this world….

 We too all previously lived among them in our fleshly desires, carrying out the inclinations of our flesh and thoughts, and we were by nature children under wrath as the others were also. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, 5 made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in trespasses. You are saved by grace!

1 John 1:9 CSB – If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

2 Corinthians 12:9 CSB – “My grace is sufficient for thee.”

Hebrews 10:19,22-23 NIV – Therefore, brothers and sisters, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus,…  22 let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.