Hezekiah Acted in Confidence

 II Kings 18:5: He trusted in the LORD God of Israel; so that after him was none like him among all the kings of Judah, nor any that were before him.

 

 

 

 

Confidence comes from an absolute trust in something or someone based on experience.   When we enter our homes and turn on a light, we are confident that the switch will work.  Our confidence is based on prior experiences repeated with the same result.  Theoretical research works with this type of experiential confidence.  After repeating an experiment under controlled conditions we come to confident conclusion of an observation and begin to treat it as fact.

Confidence comes from an absolute trust in something or someone based on testimony.  Marketing relies heavily on this one.  Products are sold from the vantage of a trustworthy looking actress telling us what it did for them.  Confidence begins to build and we buy the product.

Confidence comes from an absolute trust in something or someone based on faith.  This is where Hezekiah lived.  His examples had been contrary.  He himself had not experienced the reliability of God.  He could look to maybe some small experiences and could look into the testimony of history to see God.  Ultimately, his confident trust swelled up from faith in the Creator.

RESPOND WITH ACTION: Faith is the evidence of things hoped for and the substance of what we cannot see.  For what are you looking?  Where is your hope?

PRAY WITH FAITH: Father of Faith, blow the fresh breath of Your life into our faith.  The life that we live in this world, we wish to live by the faith of the Son of God, who loves us and gave Himself for us.

It is not only for ourselves that we come today.   Into Your presence we come asking for our family and friends.  Cause our faith to build strong in You.  Cause our faith to see clearly that for which we look in expectant hope.  Cause our faith to bring into this world newness from the substance of things for which we hope.

 

Confidence—Greater Trust

Quotes on Greatness

"It is not truth that makes man great; but man that makes truth great." ~ Confucius

A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once." ~ Blaise Pascal

Nurture your mind with great thoughts, for you will never go any higher that you think. ~ Benjamin Disraeli

And I smiled to think God's greatness flowed around our incompleteness; Round our restlessness, His rest. ~ Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Great men hallow a whole people, and lift up all who live in their time. ~ Johns Hopkins

Greatness is a road leading towards the unknown. ~ Charles De Gaulle

I pronounce it as certain that there was never a truly great man that was not at the same time truly virtuous. ~ Benjamin Franklin