Hebrews 10: 35, it says, “Cast not away therefore your confidence, which hath great recompense of reward”. Brethren, today we are here as usual to corporately register our very deep appreciation to God for His wonderful works in our lives.
From January to date, we have crossed so many “borders”, a lot of waters have gone under the bridge but we bless God that we are standing. And as you all are aware, every opportunity of human existence actually calls for thanksgiving, in other words, our thanksgiving must not be restricted to a particular day or a particular week or a particular moment, as long as we are alive, we are duty bound to give praise to God.
So today, I would like to share with you briefly on the topic Cast Not Away Your Confidence; and to be honest with you, I told the ministers and workers in the morning that this was not my original sermon for today, I had something else prepared. But I felt a very strong and strange urge by the spirit to talk to us about the role of confidence in our lives as individuals, and of course as children of God, and how our confidence level affects our sense of gratitude, positivity and gratitude are basic ingredients or core ingredients of confidence.
Now the word cast as you all know means to throw away, to abandon, to discard and of course to relinquish. While confidence on its own is the belief in oneself; confidence is a belief in one’s abilities and the certainty (take note of that), the certainty that you can handle situations effectively. So it comes from what I call a quiet self assurance to trust in the Almighty God.
And even sometimes people around us, there are times we have this confidence that oh my wife cannot do this to me, my husband will not let me down, my child has made a commitment and he’s going to do it, but more importantly, a quiet self asssurance that it doesn’t matter what happens that God will do it. It must be said here that confidence is distinct from pride or arrogance, because there are times people mistaking confidence for pride or arrogance but they are not the same, you can be confident and yet be very humble.
No, confidence involves the realistic assessment of your strengths and weaknesses, and guess what, confidence is usually built through experience and a positive mindset. Therefore, we can conveniently assert that confidence is built on the tripod of what I call self asssurance, trust and confidentiality. You have that belief that look, based on your strength that I can do this thing and trust that look, God or whoever is someone that has the capacity.
And when you talk about confidentiality you talk about keeping secrets; when you say I confide in you, so you are telling the person look, this is between the two of us. So confidence rests on the tripod of self asssurance, trust or reliance and confidentiality.
So cast not away thy confidence then means to maintain your faith. In fact, I had to send to the choir that they have to change the hymnal to what they sang today to reflect what we are talking about; cast not away the covenant mean to maintain your faith, holding firmly to a confident hope and bold trust in God, notwithstanding the prevailing situations and challenges around you.
Cast not away your confidence is a call, is an encouragement to persevere and of course refusing to be discouraged, frustrated or intimidated or throwing the towel due to pressure, persecution or fear. It is a call not to let go of your conviction and not to give in to fear; it is an encouragement to all, especially believers to stay strong in the face of hardship and social pressure and trusting God for answer to prayers even when the result has not come.
I’m sure God has brought all of us here today so that we can be re-energized, God has brought every one of us here today so that our hope could be rekindled and I trust God that none of you will go back home the same way you came in the name of Jesus.
I believe strongly in my spirit that God is speaking to someone directly here this morning and He’s saying it loud and clear to him or her not to give up. Please don’t give up, hard times or tough times they say never last but strong people do, that is, those who trust in the Lord are never let down. It is my prayer for you today that you will not be let down in Jesus name.
In Psalm 125: 1, it says “They that trust in the Lord shall be as mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever.” I said this prophetically that regardless of your situations, regardless of your circumstances, you will celebrate victory in the mighty name of Jesus.
Very quickly, let me share some key aspects of confidence with you; number one, is a self-fulfilling prophecy. In other words, confidence operates as a state of mind because believing you can accomplish a given task often creates what I call the mental and emotional environment necessary to accomplish it. When you say you can do it, when you have that belief in you, it creates a mental and emotional environment that fuels your capacity to achieve.
In Philippians 4:13, the Bible says Paul was telling the Philippians, he said I can do all things through Christ that strengthens me; if you go to the book of Numbers, (time will not permit us) when Moses sent out the 12 spies to go and spy the land of Canaan, about two of them that went, when they came back, the first gave their report and they said look, the place is good, it does exist but the problem is that the things we see there we may not be able to handle, but Joshua and Caleb by reason of confidence, they prophesied and that’s why you must cultivate the habit of prophesying to your life, prophesy over your life, prophesy over your children.
They said we are well able, Numbers 13:30, the Bible says Joshua and Caleb stilled the people, (they asked the people to keep quiet), they said we are well able. And Caleb stilled the people before Moses and said, let us go up at once, and possess it for we are well able to overcome it, did they overcome it or not? Those who said they will not be able to go, were they able to make it? Confidence finds expression in self prophecy.
Another example is David in 1st Samuel 17: 37 when Goliath was terrorizing everybody and nobody could come out and David decided to say look, I’m going to confront this man, they said look you are not trained in the art of war; he said look, I remember a day that I had to confront a lion, the day I was able to confront a bear, he said the Lord that gave me the lion, the Lord that gave me the bear will give me this uncircumcised Philistine, did it happen or not?
Confidence finds expression in self prophecy, so I want you to begin to prophesy to yourself every time, whenever you are confronted with challenges, declare it, it is an act of confidence.
Number two, confidence is built by cultivating a positive resilient mindset, allowing individual to view situation with a sense of security and self acceptance rather than doubt. Job trusted the Lord even in the midst of his crisis; his best partner, the wife, encouraged him, curse God and die, but what was his response? He said, even though He slay me, yet will I trust in Him, that is Job 13: 15.
Number three, confidence is eternally driven. Why? It can be affected by external circumstances or influence, but genuine confidence comes from within, it comes from the inside. Our sense of security, mental and emotional stability does not necessarily depend on external validation or perfection, but because it’s a state of mind, it can be developed and practiced.
When I was young, I used to follow my dad all over the place, even in the middle of the night, we’d travel, I was never afraid, and what was the source of my security? I believed that my father was there, whatever will carry me would have to carry my father first. So fear is from the inside, just like confidence, boldness is from the inside. Yoruba has a proverb, t’aja ba l’eni l’eyin, a p’obo, (apologies to the non-Yoruba speakers, there’s no way I can interpret that), so the kind of backing you have gives you…
Now I can also walk – not in Lagos walking around in the night, but there are places I can still go that now I have no fear; those days, between our house at the time, there is a cemetery and I remember those days whatever I was coming back from outside, I will close my eyes and pick race, I will pick race because your mind is telling you oh this is a cemetery, a dead man can emerge, even though we have never seen one before, but today whether cemetery or no cemetery, I walk past because the confidence is there. Like I said, it’s a product of knowledge and experience.
I pray in the mighty name of Jesus that whatever it is that is making you unstable, the Lord will take care of that today.
It must be on record that the sense of gratitude rests squarely on the state of our mind. The reason why many of us are not usually happy, the reason why many of us are not grateful is because of the state of the mind. If you read Psalm 137, the children of Israel when they were in Babylon, they were captured, you know the children of Israel were specialists in music, they sing all the time, they sing beautiful songs, melodious songs that of course bring healings and all the rest.
So when they were captured, they started mocking them, they started tormenting them, then they said sing for us, make music for us and they started crying, they said, “How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?” I pray in the mighty name of Jesus that from today, you will not sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land in the mighty name of Jesus. And of course the Bible tells us in Proverbs 17:22 that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine.
So very quickly, how do we change your state? What I meant by that is how do you align your mind? Number one, by singing. You want to change your mood, you sing a song in worship of the Almighty God; you want to change your mood, you dance.
You know there is a way dancing changes your mood, it changes the atmosphere, the atmosphere becomes electrified, it’s like a new energy is released. And that’s why today you need to dance because when you walked in this morning, even to say amen had been very – I don’t know what the problem is but like I prayed for you, you will not go back with that tardiness.
Meditation and gratitude, another thing you need to change your state, meditation, it takes a heart of meditation to recall the goodness of God, and when you meditate, you recall, correspondingly, you give God all the glory. David said bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name.
Then another thing you need to do to change your atmosphere is by laughing. Look at your neighbor and laugh this morning. Laughter is infectious, if you look at the next person, except the person is a tiger that is when you can – look at your neighbor and say please don’t be a tiger.
You see, there are some of these things that we do we don’t attach importance to them but it’s very important. I remember those days when we were taught basic psychology in school, these are some of the little things that people – when you see a man laughing, you see a man dancing, they say what is wrong with this one, but the man is actually trying to stir up energy.
You cannot see a man that is mourning to be dancing, you cannot see a lowly in the spirit to be dancing, once you dance, it’s like the button of joy is pressed. And I pray in the mighty name of Jesus that from today, God will press the button in your life in Jesus.
Brethren, you have every reason to praise God this morning because you are by far bigger and better than you thought. You remember the story of Gideon, the Spirit of the Lord, the angel told him, he said you are a mighty man of valor; Gideon said who is the mighty man of valor, who are you talking to here? He sayid, “It’s you.” But eventually the Lord worked wonders through Gideon. I pray in the name of Jesus that from today, you will not ever discard yourself again in Jesus name.
Another one is the story of Mephibosheth, 2 Samuel 9, God said bring the prince, the king said do you know of anybody who is the descent of Jonathan? They said I will know, by the time the man was brought and the king told him from today you’ll be eating from the king’s table, he said who am I? I’m an ordinary dog.
Look, those who discard themselves are always victims of low self-esteem, those who discard themselves usually suffer depression. But my prayer today is that none of those things will come near you in Jesus name.
So on this note I want to draw the curtain, I’ve been signaled that Baba is about to come up, after Baba’s ministration we’ll come back and do our thanksgiving. Thank you for listening and God bless you.
