The Secret of our Confidence...Continued from page 2

Actually, God alone gives it. But we can place ourselves squarely in the bulls-eye of God’s grace by taking these five steps:

First, talk with God each day in prayer, even if at first you feel as though your prayers are pointless.

Second, read God’s inspired book each day, even if at first you read just a few verses from the Gospel of John.

Third, as you begin to sense God’s spirit touching your life, make a personal commitment to Christ. Dare to confess your sin to Him and believe that He paid for your sin on the cross. Invite the risen Christ to be the leader of your life.

Step number 4 is this: gather regularly with other believers to worship God. Yes, you could worship alone in a trout-filled stream or on a manicured golf course. But Jesus said, “Where two or three come together in my name, there I am with them.” (Matt. 18:20)

The final step in getting personal with God is to take some risks with Him. Dare to do something that is not likely to succeed without God’s help. Reach out to some alienated person. Try to tutor a child at a local school. Tithe your income. Ask the Salvation Army to assign you a family to help this Christmas.

I often think back to the summer when I was a college junior, just 19-years-old. I was invited to be a summer pastor for a little church in Laurens, S.C. Their appointed pastor could not arrive until September. I was scared to death. Volumes could be written about what I didn’t know at 19. But God blessed my risk-taking. The Holy Spirit, operating through that little congregation, confirmed my lifetime mission that summer.

I shudder to think what might have happened to me if I had not taken that risk. When we take God-approved risks, we come to know God better and trust Him more. Where in your life are you taking God-approved risks that are not likely to succeed without God’s help? If you want to know God personally, risk-taking is essential.

It is not enough to know about God. It is not enough to be an excellent student of the Scriptures. In order to celebrate real Thanksgiving, you must know God personally. Paul gave a second reason for confidence:

I Can Be Confident Because God is Able to Guard All That I Entrust to Him.  

If I am the primary caretaker of people and possessions that are important to me, I am in deep trouble, because my power and wisdom are so limited. But when I entrust to God the care of people and possessions that are important to me, then I have enlisted the all-wise, omnipotent God.

This does not mean that God puts an invisible protective shield around me and my family so that nothing bad can happen to us. This is a free, sin-marred world in which bad things do happen to people of faith. God does not love me more or less than any other person on earth. What then can I be sure of in this insecure world? God’s Word assures us that nothing can separate us eternally from each other or from God. Nothing can happen tomorrow that God and we cannot handle together. No tragedy can erase God’s sufficiency.