IS SELF-TRUST BIBLICAL

 

 
 

 

Should we trust and believe in ourselves? Not according to the Scriptures:

·       I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. (1 Corinthians 3:6–7)

 

Compared to Creator and Sustainer, we are nothing. Without Him, we can do nothing of any value (John 15:4-5). While we are fellow workers with God (1 Corinthians 3:9), He deserves all the credit:

 

·       For if anyone thinks he is something, when he is nothing, he deceives himself. (Galatians 6:3).

 

In contrast, our nature lusts after self-confidence. Why? In the short-run, it feels good to believe that we are in control, but it is self-delusion and a hardening to the truth about ourselves. Instead, God desires truth and perfects it in us:

 

·       Behold, you delight in truth in the inward being, and you teach me wisdom in the secret heart. (Psalm 51:6)

 

True wisdom is so contrary to what we want to believe, especially about ourselves, that it must come from God, and He will provide!

 

It is painful to realize that we are so limited and needy. Instead, we want to feel that we have what we need and can manage the challenges of life. To learn dependence upon our Savior and to trust in Him, rather than in ourselves, self-trust must be burnt out of us. This requires suffering:

·       For we do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. He delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will deliver us again. (2 Corinthians 1:8–10)

 

Self-trust must surrender to God-trust, and suffering is the means to see ourselves as we really are—needy and broken. Consequently, Paul concluded:

·       For we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh. (Philippians 3:3)

 

Besides, Scripture assures us that to put trust in the flesh (ourselves) is deadly:

·       Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart turns away from the LORD. He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come. He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land. Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD. He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.” (Jeremiah 17:5–8)

 

Self-Trust rejects God-trust. The more we trust in ourselves, the less we trust in God. Once we despair of ourselves, we are forced to turn to God. However, I’ve found that the alure to trust in ourselves is powerful, and is often an unseen addiction, an addiction which can only be broken through suffering and the growing confidence that we can trust in a God who loved us so much that He died for us. In short, it is an addiction that can only be broken by God, and even then, this drug continues to entice us.