The Root Cause of Lack of Confidence
The root cause why we lack confidence is because we do not have a genuine, real knowledge of ourselves, or some would say, a good self-image. We do not really know ourselves. Once you know who and what you are and are thoroughly convinced of this knowledge, you will have all the confidence that you need.
Our family and teachers have the tendency of inculcating in us a false knowledge of ourselves. Most of them have drilled into our consciousness that in order to be of any value to the world we have to go to school, to obey our parents and teachers, to read books and study well. The list can go on and on. They built into our consciousness a poor self-image. They do not tell us that even before doing all the things they tell us to do we have already an infinite value, one that is greater than all the universes created or possible to be created.
But once we know ourselves as God knows us we will have all the confidence in the world.
A Way of Life, Not a Matter of a Few Verses
You may have thought that memorizing some verses which would bolster your self-confidence and recalling these verses when you feel to lose confidence would be the cure to give you confidence in what you say or do.
There are so many verses which you can use for this purpose but they will not give you constant, increasing confidence, one that grows organically with you.
You cannot have a confidence greater than that which is in God himself. God is absolute confidence. This is because God can do all things, except to contradict himself.
What I suggest is for you to take up a way of life such that you always have this confidence and you grow in this confidence. As you grow in this confidence you will constantly improve yourself, because you know you can improve yourself.
Genuine, Real Knowledge of Ourselves
Before I thought that in order to know myself better I have to study my physical, mental, and spiritual composition, my heritage from my parents, my tendencies, my idiosyncrasies, etc.
I found out that this way of knowing myself will only make me inward looking and make me more self-conscious and thus lead me to lose self-confidence.
The path to genuine, real knowledge of ourselves is the path that leads to the perfect person. Knowing more and more of this perfect person is knowing more of ourselves because whether we know it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, our real self is in him and in him alone. This perfect person invited us to learn of him in Matthew 11:29. And the reason why our real self is in him is because he created us and he alone knows us best and if you are a Christian he lives in you. Learning more of him then enables us to know more of ourselves. As we learn of him he teaches us who and what we are.
To accept this invitation in Matthew 11:29 is to engage in a lifestyle in which we constantly learn of Jesus and learning more of him we know more of ourselves and knowing more of ourselves we believe more in the capacities put there by the creator himself.
The two more verses which I want to mention here are also statements of Jesus himself. The second verse is taken from Matthew 19:26, that with God all things are possible. The third verse is from Mark 9:23 where Jesus says that all things are possible to him who believes. The second and third verses will simply operate in your life if you live out the first verse I mentioned here, namely, Matthew 11:29. Those are the Scripture passages for confidence, messages for improving yourself.
Instead of just memorizing some verses which give you a temporary push to be self-confident what you need is a way of life that makes you confident all the way through. The ideal is to have the self-image of the Christ, since he lives in you through his Spirit if you are a genuine Christian. He is your real life. That is why Paul the apostle said that he can do all things through him who strengthened him in Philippians 4:13.
Improving Yourself
Once you live out this lifestyle of always learning of Jesus you will inevitably improve yourself. The reason for this is you become more and more like him. And you cannot improve yourself better than this God who became a human being.
That is how I also developed my self-confidence. I learn more of the Christ daily. No matter whom I am facing I know he is less than God and God is with me. In a sense I am more than him because God is with me. I suspect that the confidence that Mahatma Gandhi had in successfully opposing British power came also from a habitual reading of the Gospels, learning more of the Christ.
If you live out, not just memorize, these three verses from the Scriptures cited here, particularly from the Gospels, you will have all the confidence in the world and you will go on improving yourself because you are going to become more and more like God himself.
Here are my other blogs which may be of help to you:for your spiritual growth
http://bit.ly/alternativehealth
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Here are your links to download the e-books for FREE. To download a copy of A NEW CHRIST by Wallace D. Wattles click this website http://bit.ly/anewchrist. To download a free copy of A NEW EARTH by Eckhart Tolle click this website http://bit.ly/ebookanewearth. I hope that you enjoy reading these free e-books and profit much from them, as I have also profited greatly from them.
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