Confidence Biblical Truths for Discovering Gods Potential for You Free PDF Download
INTRODUCTION
Confidence. A word we all use often but many of us barely think about. I
am not a slave to a dictionary, so I'll leave the semantics of definition to
someone more learned than me, perhaps. I will say that the surest way to
live confidently is to have what I call a “big God.” Many of us, at
different times in our lives, have a very little God. And make no mistake:
it is we who have limited Him. We believe in God, but as to applying His
power, His might, His love, and His greatness to our lives, we just aren't
sold on the idea that it will work. So we have reduced God down to being
practically a nonentity in our day-to-day lives.
If you have a little God, in the very nature of the case, you are going to
get little spiritual results and little any kind of results. And with this little
God, the problems common to all humanity can be counted on to gang up
on you. But, on the contrary, if you think of a big God, if you pray to a
big God, if you act like there is a big God, you will grow big spiritually
and in every other way and big results will accrue. You will make a big
contribution to the day and age in which you live. You will be a partner
of a big God.
This may seem to you a rather extraordinary way to talk about God;
but we are in good company, I assure you, for this is the way the Bible
talks about Him: “The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of
Peace” (Isaiah 9:6 KJV). Christianity speaks always in superlatives. St.
Paul in his letter to the Philippians (4:19 KJV) writes, “My God shall
supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus.”
Now what is meant by all my need? Surely, Lord, You mean by this that
You will satisfy my spiritual needs … You are dealing with me only in
spiritual things. But the statement doesn't say that. It has no parenthesis
nor limitation. It says, “My God shall supply all your need.” He will
supply your mental needs; He will supply your emotional needs; He will
supply your physical needs; He will supply your material needs. He will
do everything for you—so it says in the Scripture. And by doing
everything for you, you will receive, yes, confidence. The ability to
believe in yourself, in something bigger than yourself, and it will allow
you to do big things, with your big confidence, from your big God.
And again St. Paul affirms, “I can do all things through Christ which
strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13 KJV). All things? You mean just
some things, a few things. Oh no, it doesn't mean that at all. It means I
can do—think of this! I, just a weak little human being!—can do all
things through Christ who gives me the strength.
So don't sit around and wail and whine and moan and complain that
you are weak, inadequate, and inferior, for that is not true at all, except
only insofar as you insist on being that way. You say to yourself, “I
believe in my God.” Then you begin to grow into power.
What a God He really is! In the first days of every New Year it might
be well to turn right back to the beginning of the Bible and start from
there. How does the Bible begin? Well, everybody knows. “In the
beginning God created the heaven and the earth” (Genesis 1:1 KJV). No
little God did that, because this is a tremendous earth and this is a
tremendous solar system. And He made it all. He took His great hands
and scooped out the deep valleys and raised up enormous mountains.
Then He took both hands and grabbed handfuls of stars and swung them
into the blue. All space is filled with them. And He started rivers singing
their way to the sea. He designed the universe so that there would be
sunset and sunrise and high noon, and spring and summer and fall and
winter, and He brought into being the productivity of the earth.
Men from this planet have now gone to the moon. And what did they
find when they got to the moon? They found that the same laws that are
operative on earth are operative on the moon. They could do the same
things there that they can do here. And for the first time in the history of
mankind human eyes beheld not the rising of the moon or the rising of
the sun, but the rising of the earth. Those men were so enthralled that
they repeated these words from Scripture:
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
And the earth was without form and void; and darkness
was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God
moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let
there be light: and there was light. And God saw the light,
that it was good: and God divided the light from the
darkness. And God called the light Day, and the darkness
he called Night. And the evening and the morning were
the first day.
And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the
waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. And
God made the firmament, and divided the waters which
were under the firmament from the waters which were
above the firmament: and it was so.
And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening
and the morning were the second day. And God said, Let
the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one
place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
And God called the dry land Earth; and the gathering
together of the waters called he Seas: and God saw that it
was good.
—Genesis 1:1–10 KJV
Mankind affirms the greatness of God. And we affirm the greatness of
God with our confidence. We have a big God and if we live up to a big
God, which means generosity and brotherhood and kindness and
goodwill, this big God will make big and confident people and a big and
confident society of people who know their God. They shall be strong,
strengthened through Jesus Christ who sustains us. Amen.
—Norman Vincent Peale
