Confidence

 Greetings to  you  all in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ,

       In what do you have confidence these days?  I can think back and remember several things in which I had confidence, but it turned out to be foolish confidence, to say the least.  I have mentioned before, the time that our son and I walked across the ice, having confidence that it would hold us up.  Well, it didn’t, and we both got wet.  But there was another time that I had confidence in something rather foolish.  I was trying to build a raft on a pond about 3 miles from my house and so piled a number of boards on the handle bars of my bicycle.  I had confidence that I would be able to ride down the road and down “Gooseberry Hill” with a load of lumber on the handlebars.  I made it halfway down “Gooseberry Hill” when the front wheel began to wobble and I suddenly found myself crashing into the ditch with the load of lumber flying everywhere.  I had everything pictured in my mind and had confidence that it would work.  It didn’t. 

      We sometimes think that we can have confidence in the government, politicians, police, teachers or others in authority over us only to find out that there can sometimes be problems. The truth is, there are not many things in this life in which we can express total confidence.  There is, however, One that will never fail.  Philippians 1:6 says, “Being confident of this very thing, that He which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”  In this case, Paul mentions the fact that we can have confidence in God that He will complete a work that He has started in us.  Paul was writing to the church at Philippi and they were relatively young in the faith.  He reminded them that even in the difficulties that were going to come upon them, they could have confidence in God.  He had begun a good work in them and He would see it through.  The same thing is true of us today.  We might be either young or old physically and we might be young or old spiritually.  That is to say, we are all still growing day by day.  God has begun this work in us and we can be confident that He will complete it.  So, even though you might feel as if God has left you on your own, realize that He is still working in your life.  Praise God today that He has not left us on our own but is completing the work that He has started.