In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: Confidence is a good thing. Confidence is a healthy thing. Confidence is a quality that all of us should have, and confidence is a quality God intends for us to have and to enjoy and to live out our lives and to work out what He's called us to do. Not hesitating, not feeling we can't, not feeling down, but feeling confident. I think oftentimes people who have so much to give never get around to giving it because they don't think they're worthy of it.

Guest (Male): Words are important. In fact, the Apostle James warns that the tongue rules the body. So today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, we'll learn about being intentional about what we say, since it has a powerful effect on our lives and those around us. Stay with us now as Dr. Stanley's message reveals the confidence that conquers.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Your confidence level is probably one of the greatest determining factors of whether you'll succeed in life or whether you'll fail. I've known some people over the years who were very qualified, very gifted, very skilled, talented, educated—you name it. But they never got very far in life for the simple reason of the way they thought about themselves. I thought much more highly of them than they thought of themselves. There are a lot of people who miss out on life's best because they think they're less than, and their negative attitude is devastating to them. I think people don't realize that unless somebody points it out to them that you're gifted, you're skilled, you're qualified, but they don't think so. As long as you don't think so, it's a detriment in your life.

The truth is, confidence is a very important thing. In fact, it's a good thing. It's a healthy thing. It's an enabling thing. Yet, many people think in terms of confidence, "Well, if I'm confident, I'm going to come across as being bold, and I'm going to be egotistical, and people are going to think I'm just being prideful." Not necessarily. You can be very confident without being prideful, egotistical, or arrogant because confidence is of God. If you don't have it, it's not because God wouldn't have you to have it. It's because you've chosen not to believe about yourself what God would have you to believe.

In this particular passage of scripture, which is very short but very profound, when I think about all that Paul said in one sentence, it's awesome. It's a verse that's easily memorized, very familiar, and people quote it. But the truth is, they don't believe it. If they believed it, they would practice it, but they don't. The way they live their lives and their sense of lack of confidence is proof that somewhere along the way they read it, they have the words, they can put the right intonations on each word, but somehow it never sinks inside.

So I want you to turn to Philippians chapter four. He says, beginning in verse 10, "But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity," which means simply this: they were supporting his ministry, and then they had a little low time, and so they ceased to support him, but now they're coming back to support him again.

Here's what he said: "I'm saying this not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I'm in." Can you say that? Can you say, "I'm content no matter what my circumstances"? "I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need." In fact, he says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

He says, "Through all these difficulties and hardships and trying times, I've learned something." And that's this: "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The Apostle Paul had an awesome sense of confidence. Now, the fact that it was not pride and arrogance, I want you to turn if you will to Acts chapter four for a moment because here we get the right understanding of what confidence is all about. Confidence is a sense of boldness, assurance. It's a sense of being very purposeful in a person's life.

Listen to what he says here. Peter and John are before the council being tried because they've been preaching the gospel. Look in verse 10, and you'll hear what Peter says. "Let it be known to all of you and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead—by this name this man stands here before you in good health." They healed this man.

"He is the stone which was rejected by you, the builders, but which became the chief cornerstone. And there is salvation in no one else; for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved." That is his message. He's saying it in such a fashion, this is their response. "Now as they observed the confidence of Peter and John and understood that they were uneducated, untrained men, they were amazed, and began to recognize them as having been with Jesus."

What is it that got a hold of them? Their confidence. They said, "There's something about these men." And what they realized is that they'd been with Jesus. So Peter and John weren't being arrogant. They weren't being prideful. They were just speaking the truth. I think about what Paul says in this first chapter of Philippians. He says in verse six, "For I am confident of this very thing." What is that? "That He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ," that is, he said, "I'm persuaded. I am confident of this very thing."

For example, if you turn to 1 John chapter five, speaking of confidence, listen to what he says in this 14th verse concerning prayer. He says, "This is the confidence we have. We're persuaded about this. And that is, if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests which we've asked of Him." That is a matter of being fully persuaded, fully assured, fully convinced that what He's saying is absolutely the truth.

When I think about that and I think about oftentimes this verse, this 13th verse is oftentimes quoted but very often not believed. It's a hindrance not to believe it. What I want us to do is look at this verse in light of what Paul really and truly meant when he said, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Did he mean what he said? Sure he did.

So what I want us to do for a moment, I want us to look at these characteristics, but I want to say first of all that in your brain, the part of your brain where the voice goes and the thoughts and so forth, whatever we think, whatever we speak, the nerves go all the way down through our body. So what we say affects us. This is why the scripture warns us in Proverbs that we can be snared by our tongue. We can be snared by our speech. He says later on in the 18th chapter that life and death is in the lips, in the tongue, in the voice, in the speech, in the word.

So I ask you again: would you say that you are a confident person? Or would you have to say, "Well, no, I don't feel very confident about things"? Why don't you? "Well, I'm not sure. I'm just not very confident." Confidence is a good thing. It's a very important thing. You want your children to grow up to be confident, to be assured, to be persuasive, and to be persuaded by things that are good and right.

Watch this. I want to explain something first. The word "confess" means to agree with. Now, watch this carefully. It's powerful. When you and I confess sin, we are agreeing with God about our sinfulness or about our actions. So it's an affirmation that, "Yes, God, I agree. I'm not just mouthing it." When I confess sin, I am agreeing with God that my actions, my attitude is wrong. It's sinful.

In light of that, when we confess, for example, and say, "I'm not healthy," here's what you're saying: you're sending your body a message, and you are affirming the fact that you are not healthy. You may not be as healthy as you'd like to be, but when you say, "I'm not healthy," nerves go all over your body, and your body gets the message, "I am not healthy." Therefore, you're going to automatically do things, say things, eat, drink, no exercise. In other words, you are going to start living up to what you've affirmed. When you say, "I'm not healthy," you send your body a message. Your body takes the message.

"I'm tired." You say, "Well, I am tired sometimes." What are you going to do about it? Just sit around and be tired? Or are you going to think about what's the other way for me to say that? In other words, I can be tired. We're all going to be tired. I'm tired every Sunday afternoon for a little while, but I get over it. Once I get over that being tired for a few moments or maybe a half hour or so, I get over it because I've learned that if I change my mind about that, the rest of the afternoon can be very productive. I spend most Sunday afternoons studying for the next Sunday because I like doing it. If I said, "Oh, I'm just tired for the rest of the day," you waste time.

The next one: "I can't." When you send your body the message, "I can't," you know what happens? You can't. What you've affirmed is, "I'm inadequate. I'm not adequate to do this. I can't do that." What happens is you drain your own energy. You hinder your progress in life.

And "I'm going to fail." When you confess that you're going to fail, you have affirmed that you are a failure and therefore you are going to fail. Oftentimes people will come through the line and we talk about different things, and somebody will say, "I've got this test, and I'm so afraid I'm going to fail." I say, "Let's change that right now." If you are afraid you're going to fail and that's your affirmation and that's the message that you're sending your whole system, what happens is you get to the test and you forget all kind of things. Why? You've already told your body you're going to fail. This isn't mind over matter. This is reality.

So, "I'm not good enough." There are many people who are very qualified and capable to do many things who don't think they're good enough. Good enough compared to what? Good enough compared to who? Good enough—that is, if God's called you to do something, did He call you to do something that you're just not good enough to do? When you say you're not good enough, ask yourself the question: "Why did I say that?" What you're saying is, "I'm not good enough compared to her, compared to him, compared to them, compared to what?" In other words, you send your body, your whole system a message that you're just not good enough to get it done.

Then, of course, "I'm not very attractive." You say, "Well, I look in the mirror sometimes and not only do I think that, I know that." No, you don't. That's the feeling of a moment. Now, think about this. Many people who are very attractive do not think they are. That's why they're spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars every year trying to do what? Look better. Is anything wrong with looking better? No. But look what you said. You said, "I'm not very attractive." According to who? Because you can—listen, on Sunday morning, don't you think you look pretty good? Come on. Don't you think you look pretty good on Sunday morning? You come, you think you look pretty good because you got up, you got yourself showered, and your hair's all fixed up, and lipstick and all those things. You're looking pretty good. I think you look real good. She said, "Thank you, Pastor." All right. I do think you look good.

Then let me ask you a question: what about Monday morning? Aren't you going to dress as best you can on Monday morning? But you don't feel like it because you're going to church now and sing to Jesus. You're going to work and it's going to be like, "I don't feel good. I'm not very attractive." Don't tell yourself that. You tell yourself that, your kids pick that up. Whatever you say, they're going to say. It's a negative attitude that can be very costly.

Then, of course, look at this one: "I'm getting old." You don't want to say that. When you tell your body you're getting old, you know what happens? Your body, I'm telling you, it responds to what you tell it. You're getting old. What says you're getting old? I meet people who act old in their 40s. They act old. They think they're old. They act old. After a while, you get to looking like you think. Well, isn't that the truth? Sure it's the truth.

Then, of course, "I'm retired and taking it easy." Well, you know what I think about that. You retire and take it easy, you tell your body, "You know, I'm not going to work anymore, I'm going to take it easy," and so everything begins to shut down, and you die young.

Then, of course, "I'm giving up." When you say, "I'm giving up," what you're saying is, "I affirm that I am inadequate, I can't get it done, I quit." It's a very negative thing.

Then, "I always lose." Would you consider yourself a loser? Just because you lost at one thing doesn't mean that you're a loser. Think about this: you and I would be sitting in the dark if Thomas Edison had said, "It won't work, and I'm a loser." But a thousand tries before he came to brighten up the world. You're not a loser.

And then, "That's just my luck." Christians don't use that word. When somebody says, "Well, good luck to you," I say, "Mm-mm. I don't want luck. I want a blessing. Can you ask God to bless me?" There's no such thing as luck. God's in everything in one way or the other.

Then, "Things seem to always go against me." Well, let me ask you: what are things? And what do you mean "always go against you"? You mean everything's always bad? You mean you never make any good moves in life? That's a statement that's devastating.

Then, "I can't afford it." You say, "Well, if you look in my checkbook, then you know I can't." No. Now, watch this. Listen carefully. As a child of God, you can afford everything that God has for you to have at this moment in time according to His will. When you say, "I can't afford it," on the basis of what? There's some things you do not have enough money to buy. One of the reasons is because God doesn't want you to have it, or He doesn't want you to have it now. But if you walk around saying, "Well, I just can't afford this and I can't afford that," and if you feel that way, stay out of the malls. If that's your feeling, then listen, think about what a contradiction. "I can't afford it," and you stroll the malls looking at all the things you're going to buy, you can't afford it.

I think about the way people live. They live totally out of the will of God. Look at this: "God doesn't answer my prayers." Imagine this: why would anybody want to get on their knees and talk to God about what they need and then say, "But He just doesn't answer my prayers"? What you do is you cancel out what God wants to do for you.

So then look at this. This is the positive side. Watch this. "I will reach my goals. I will win. I'm going to get well. I'm not giving up. I will fight to the finish. I will have enough. I will get it done. And I will obey God no matter what." Now, look at the difference. I can tell you what: if somebody put all those wires on you like they know how to do and you went through the first group of negative things and they registered, and then you went to the last one, here's what happens: the first one sends you down, the second one sends you up because it affects your body. It makes a difference in your life.

So with that in mind and with what Paul has said in this particular passage, I want us to look at something here because the Apostle Paul is expressing his own confidence as he said, "I'm persuaded, I'm confident about these things." So I want us to just look at this statement for a moment, analyze it, and see, okay, on what basis can you and I make this statement?

So I want you to think about this. When the Greeks wrote something, they put the most important thought of a sentence at the beginning. So we read, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The Greek statement is, "All things I can do in Him who enables me." "All things" first.

Now, when you ask yourself the question, you say, "Well, what do you mean by 'all things'?" Well, that's what he said. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Not some things, but all things that He will empower me to do. Now, I want you to watch two or three things because this sentence means exactly what it says, but you have to understand what Paul included here.

He says the reason he can say this is because of his relationship to Jesus. "I can do all things through Christ." You know, he said, "I died to my old self. It's Christ living within me." He understood his relationship. He understood that he had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ who makes promises that He keeps. So when he says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," look at the balance. Look what he's saying. He's saying, "Here's what I can, but here's what God does. I can, He's the strength. I will, but He's the strength. He's the power."

Whatever God calls us to do, He enables us to do. He is there to enable us and to help us to be able to understand that He doesn't make empty promises. And so when he says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me," it's always based on a relationship, not on our abilities, talents, and skills. That's boastfulness and pride and arrogance. You can do anything and everything God called you to do within His will. If you don't think so, then it won't happen.

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. If we expect to face difficulties with strong confidence, we need to get to know who God really is. So invest your time in studying His word and in prayer. And if you need a little help knowing how to understand the Bible for yourself or how to pray effective prayers, visit us at intouch.org. Follow the link to "Today on Radio" to hear this message again. You can order a copy of Dr. Stanley's complete message from our website. The title is "Confidence That Conquers." All this and more is at intouch.org. To call or text, it's 1-800-IN-TOUCH. You can write to us at: In Touch, P.O. Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357.

Believers need to guard against valuing idols. What are idols? Dr. Stanley answers that question coming up in today's Moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: The peace of God is tranquility and quietness of the soul. It is the assurance that no matter what's going on around us, everything is secure. Peace is not determined by circumstances. Neither is it a matter of chance. It is a matter of choice.

Guest (Male): In a world filled with noise and uncertainty, you can discover peace that cannot be shaken. Get your new free booklet, "Peaceful and Still: A Guide to Experiencing God's Rest in an Anxious Age." Visit intouch.org/peace.

Guest (Female): In our spiritual journey, we often have questions. How do I know God's will for my life? Does God hear my prayers? Why do bad things happen? The answers are found in the word of God. But how do we know where to start? The free In Touch devotional can help point you in the right direction with biblically based content from Dr. Charles Stanley. You'll gain insight and wisdom through daily devotionals, Bible studies, and more. The In Touch devotional, delivered monthly to your mailbox—subscribe for free at intouch.org/daily.

Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch. One of the sneakiest sins is idolatry. With a reminder for believers, here's a Moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Idols are very deceptive things. They come in different forms. For some people, it's money. For some people, it's a person. For other people, it's some status in life. But idols come in many, many forms. They're very deceptive because they can creep into our life and we never even know that they are there. And most people, probably at some time in their life or other times, have idols. But usually, no one will admit that.

If I should ask you tonight, "Do you think there's a possibility that you could have an idol in your life? That is, something you place more value on than you do God?" You would say, "Well, there's nothing I place more value on than God. I mean, He's the only one I worship, and He's the only one I praise, and He's the only one I pray to."

But let me ask you this: does your attitude toward anything or anybody turn you in such a direction that they become first and take priority, or that thing takes priority in your life over what you know God wants for your life? They can be very deceptive. You know what? The only way to keep idols out of your life is to keep up to date of what the influence in your life is. Is it really Christ? Is it really just pure old obedience to Him? Or are there things that influence us, that challenge us, that we have to say, "Well, God, yes, but"? When God says no competition, no challenges, no competitors to your devotion and love to Me, we have to lay it down.

Guest (Male): Learn more about truly worshipping Jesus Christ at intouch.org. Did God speak to your heart through today's message? Tell us what you plan to do next. On the next In Touch program, what we say can be an encouragement or a detriment to our well-being. Hear about the source of real confidence when you join us again for In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley.

This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.