WARNING: I AM GOING ON A RANT
If you are on facebook you are probably well aware of the current craze of posting quotes, often times containing an inspiring pictures in the background. I have no idea where people are finding all these quotes and pictures, but they are everywhere! Some I admit are funny. A few are actually inspiring. Many are annoying as I have to scroll pass them to see what is going on in the lives of family and friends. And some of them just make me really mad. They are the ones that either say, "Believe in yourself" or allude to this idea that we should trust and believe in ourselves and everything will be ok. What makes matters worse if these are often times posted by well-meaning brothers and sisters in Christ. The problem: The idea of believing in yourself IS NOT BIBLICAL in anyway, shape, or form. Believing in yourself is a terrible idea. Here is the self that you are believing in according to Romans 3, "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understand, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one one who does good, not even one. Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit. The poison of vipers is on their lips. Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know. There is no fear of God before their eyes." A few verses in later in chapter 3, "For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." Friend, if you are believing in yourself, that is who you are believing in. You are believing in a person who has been deeply and throughly affected by sin in every fiber of your body. We need to stop pretending that we are pretty good people, when the Bible makes it abundantly clear that we are really wicked, sinful people, who have sinned against the God of the universe.
Friend, the only hope for you, and the only hope for me, is Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ died in my place. Jesus Christ took my punishment. Jesus Christ took God's wrath against my sin, upon himself. My hope is not in believing in myself, my hope is in believing in Jesus. In believing what HE accomplished on the cross for me. Believing in yourself will lead to an eternity apart from God, in hell, because you (just like me) have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. Galatians 6:14, "May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world." Stop believing in yourself. Start believing in Jesus and what HE HAS ALREADY ACCOMPLISHED ON YOUR BEHALF!
END RANT
