Finding Confidence in Christ

If you want to build confidence in your life, you need to consider who you're listening to. Now, yes, I need you to listen to God, and yes, I need you to do what he says, and yes, that comes by reading the Bible, and yes, that comes by getting to know the Holy Spirit so when he gives you direction, you know his voice and you know how to follow. Yes. But there is also something that is problematic, and that is that we ourselves often are our own worst enemies. And there is an antidote for that. Believing what God says has most to do with when you read his word, do you obey? But it also has everything to do with, do you believe what he said about you? Most of us don't know what God has said about us, and that's a problem. I have a free download that is available. It's called The Journey to Taking Your Thoughts Captive. It is me teaching you. It walks you through how to change your thoughts, how to do that with God's word so you can create another script in your head. It is super important that you scour the scriptures to know what God says about you and to walk in the confidence of who he's created you to be. Because there is a general confidence builder. There is a general access to who God says I am. There's a general building of your faith because of the God who's in you. Even if you don't have the track record, even if you don't have the history, when you believe in the God who walks with you and who lives in you, it changes how you show up. To the event. This makes me think about David going to visit the Philistines. They're at the battle line and Goliath is there taunting the Hebrew people. And David is like, "What are we doing?" He's like, "What are we doing here? Do we not believe that God can do something?" And then he goes because of his confidence and he attacks Goliath. Why does he do that though? It's because he understood who God was in his life. He had a story to tell himself. He'd also killed the lion and killed the bear and he had that experience. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. But he also believed that God could work in him. So in order for you to believe that, you have to take your thoughts captive, because for most of us, our worst enemy is ourselves. Now, we do incorporate the voices we've heard from the past. We do incorporate the people that were negative to us. We do incorporate our past mistakes. But the way you're going to change your mind and develop your personal confidence is because God believes in you. He believes in what you can do with the power that he gives you. He believed in you enough to sacrifice the life of his son, to pay a very painful death, because if "Hey, you can be supercharged with the promise of eternity and with the power of the Spirit in your life. And if you will live surrendered, I can actually do things in you." It's that kind of confidence that you want, which means you have to have the right thoughts. So taking your thoughts captive, it begins, first of all, in the confidence that ensues when you root yourself in the identity of God's truth. And taking your thoughts captive is a way to do that. I have had many times in my life when I have not felt very confident. I was not confident starting my podcast. I was not confident beginning the Inner Circle. I was not confident as a beginning speaker. I wasn't confident the first time I put my name on a book, but I did them because they were the next thing and it was the next light on my path. It was the next step I felt compelled to make. And I did it because I simply believed from my knowledge of what God has been in and through my life, that if he says it, I can do it. Now, I've built that by taking my thoughts captive, and I've built that by practicing in other ways. But I arrived at each of those points thinking, "I can't do it." Here's what I can tell you in reverse. Zephaniah 3:17, it tells us that God delights in us. I've learned to believe that God is a parent. He is a Father who smiles at me like I smile at my kids when they're learning to walk or when they do new things. He is delighted. In me living out my design, that he's smiling even when I'm struggling to take a step. He is in my corner. I believe 2 Peter 1:3, when it tells me that I have been given everything I need for life and godliness. Now, I may have to access it. I may need to believe it. I may need to sit in it. But I have learned that if I don't have it, God has already provided it. I may need to connect to it. I may need to grow into it. But it's available to me. I live under an open heaven. I live with a God that is a good father gives good gifts to his children, that he has an open hand and that he is from a place of abundance. Oh, we're going to talk more about that, that mindset in October at our event, because in order to make your mark, in order to make a mark on this world, you have to believe that you have what it takes or that you have access to the tools. And then in order to walk in abundance, you have to believe that you serve a God who gives abundantly whatever you need or ask or can imagine that he could give it to you. One of the best things about the summer is it gives you plenty of time to get ready and to prepare for the fall. What's coming in the fall, you might ask? Oh, let me tell you. The Sister Circle Live, October 17th and 18th. It's an opportunity to gather with me in Dallas and some friends that I'd love to introduce you to. Great teaching, great podcasts, great workshops, all designed to help you focus on living intentionally as a woman of faith. It's never too early to prepare for the year to come. So we use October as a way to start to get focused and intentional so that you can make decisions about what you want to do. As your life continues to move forward. So we're gonna talk about what it means to make your mark and what it means to make your mark specifically in the area of your finances, in your abundant mindset, and getting your affairs in order. So super practical, super inspirational, and super fun. October 17th and 18th, the Sister Circle Live. I'd love to see you in the room. Register today. I've also learned to believe Psalm 139, that God knows me. I am known even when I don't know myself. And if there is something about me that he needs to tell me, that he will let me know. And then verse 13 and 14 from that same chapter, that he knit me together intentionally and he knows me and knows that I'm unique. And even if somebody else is doing it or somebody else is doing it better or somebody else did it before me, that does not mean that what I bring to the table is less than, because he wants to work through me. I have learned from Colossians 3, that I am qualified and that whatever I need to be more qualified, he will give me if I'm called, because he loves to qualify the called. I have learned from Ephesians 3:12 that I have the ability to operate in freedom with confidence. These are the things that I've had to work to internalize. I've had to read scripture and I've had to use those when other negative thoughts would come to mind. Sometimes we operate with sticky notes on the mirror. It's like we have sticky notes covering the mirror, and there are labels or things that we think about our life and about how we operate. And the work of believing, the work of believing what God says about you, the work of believing freely that everything he says can apply to you, that is the process of going to the mirror and removing the sticky notes so that you can see. There is an image There is an image that God, as Jesus inhabits you, that as you get inhabited by the power of the Holy Spirit, there is an image he wants you to see. He wants to portray on the big screen of your life so that other people around you can go, "That's who she is." But we are often covered with negative messaging, and we are covered with thoughts that we think incorrectly about ourselves, and we are covered with the track of thoughts that we've picked up from past mistakes. But God is like, if you will just stand in the mirror and look for what I am displaying and then remove the messages that are there so that you can see what I have there for you, you will walk in belief, which is better. You will walk in belief, which is better. So you need to believe freely. The second thing that you need to do is walk boldly. You need to walk boldly in your assignment. Most of us have an idea about what our assignment could be. We follow an interest, we follow a passion, we follow a skill, we follow a desire. We don't know how to do it, we don't know when we could do it, we don't know how we get the resources to do it. But because we are responding to filling a past hurt or solving a past problem or operating in what we've been taught is our ability and our strength, we have something, but we won't walk boldly. So this involves a change of attitude and a tossing away or a throwing away of misconceptions. Joshua 1:9 says, "Be strong and courageous, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Be strong and courageous. And many of us know that scripture, but we don't operate according to that scripture. We, instead of walking boldly, we rest in past misconceptions. Like if we're not a naturally confident person, that we're not going to be up to the task, that we are operating out of rejection, past rejection, and that influences whether or not we feel that we're ready. We assume that if we were truly a confident person, that rejection would hurt less. And so we think, because this hurts, it can't be right for me to walk forward boldly, because if I was bold and confident, I wouldn't be feeling this pain. We think that, oh, I don't want to be confident. I don't want to be bold because I don't want to be arrogant. I don't want to be proud, prideful. There is a difference from being prideful and arrogant and being confident in what God has given you or told you to do. We assume that, well, I can't walk boldly because if I was bold, that would be because I was born with a confidence trait. And it is true, some people are naturally more extroverted, more communicative, and maybe naturally more bold. But that does not mean you shouldn't walk boldly in what God has given you. Just because you don't have it naturally doesn't mean you don't walk in it fully. When I was 25, I started at choir at church. Y'all, I did not know how to play the piano. I knew I enjoyed Christian music, and I knew that I wanted something for all the 25-year-olds to do at church. I asked, and they were dumb enough to let me do it. And then when I wrote She's Still There, I was like, uh, y'all gonna let me write this first book? Was very nervous. I did not feel qualified, bold that it was gonna sell. But here's the thing, I was stupid enough when they told me, we think that this book can sell 25,000 copies, do you agree with that? I said, sure. They didn't tell me that most books only sell 5,000 copies. Actually, I said that wrong. 80% of the books that are created and released don't sell more than 5,000 copies. I was dumb enough to say okay to 25, and because I was aiming for 25, we sold 100 in 9 months. 100,000 books in 9 months. I was dumb enough to just say, let me ask the question, let me go forward in what I think God is asking me to do. I was dumb enough to start the Inner Circle. We want to support you, Chrystal Hurst. Okay, $5. Okay, there's a lot of people at 5, and somebody said, girl, don't, you're cheapening yourself. Okay, 10. Okay, 15. I was dumb enough to say, can they just pay my podcasting bill? I wasn't thinking, can you support me as a person? Can this be my job? I was just going for low-hanging fruit. I was dumb enough to listen to my OG 12 who said, Chrystal Hurst, you are a coach. You can be dumb and afraid and hesitant and walk boldly. You can have questions and think, I don't know how to do this, and do it anyway. Walk boldly in your assignment, and that's the key. You want to be confident that you're— it's your assignment. You may not know how, you may not be confident in doing it, but you want to be confident is I can't let this go. God keeps convincing me or telling me or convicting me that I'm supposed to be doing XYZ. I can't release it. I can't shake it. I keep thinking about it. People keep saying things to encourage me in it. I keep hearing this on the radio or in a sermon or in a podcast. It keeps, it's on repeat. I can't escape it. It's your assignment. It's your assignment. According to the Barna Group, which is a group that does a lot of research for Christian groups Churches and the State of Faith in the World, and particularly in the US, they made a statement based on a study that 75% of women, women of faith specifically, struggle with the fear of failure more than the fear of rejection. That's a big deal. That nobody wants to be rejected, but we really don't want to fail. We really don't want to fail. It's a problem. The good news is you're not alone. It's a problem we all have. But the only solution to you beating this problem, the only way to solve it, is for you to walk boldly in your assignment, pushing past fear. Joyce Meyer, I love her to death, and she says all the time, "She gotta do it afraid. You just gotta do it." The way that you're gonna build your faith and the way that you're gonna be bold and confident is when God puts something in front of you, You just do it. The way that you build a life of obedience is that when he tells you to do something small before he can trust you with something big, you just do it. And even if you look back and you're like, man, what I did, it didn't seem to produce what I thought it was going to produce— no, it produced something. It produced faith, and it produced the knowledge of God in actuality that you'll be obedient, that he can trust you with the next thing. The meal planning class that I recently did and the course that will be offered soon in the store because of that, that was obedience. I don't even know what— I don't even know what God is building in me with, with that. I don't know what, but I know he told me to do it and I was obedient. And I just trust that God was teaching me something, developing something in me, maybe teaching our team something. I don't know, but I did it because I was being obedient. And that's what makes it a success. I did it and I obeyed God. Walking boldly means just doing what he said. So you get on the stage, you move forward on the trail, you pray with others, you prepare the notes at the kitchen table, you read the book, you take the class, you develop in anticipation of what God is gonna do in you. You feel that there's an assignment you can't shake loose. And then you do whatever is in front of you to do. This is how faith is built, one layer of obedience at a time. The next thing is you gotta lead loudly and live with legacy in mind. You gotta be willing to go out front. You gotta be willing to be the trailblazer. You need to be willing to do the thing that other people in your life have never done before. You need to be willing to figure it out. So the last week when we did our sister session and Tiffany Grimes was our coaching opportunity, she came and she submitted a question in advance, and I wanted to talk about how we applied what we were learning in her situation. When she turned on her camera, y'all, her background was beautiful. She has all these beautiful cards. She has this amazing card business. And I was just thinking in my mind, Tiffany is doing it already in her mind. She's like, well, I got to get it together. I've got to do some proposals. I've got to get with some dream retailers. We always think less of our capacity and our ability than what other people see. And because we see less, we lead quietly. We don't lead loudly. We lead and live timidly. We don't lead like we expect what we're doing to leave a legacy. There are so many things I don't want to do, y'all. There's so many things, particularly with running a business, managing people, creating our own systems. You know why we do all that? Because there's vision, because there's legacy, because I've got to teach you how to pay attention to your life. And then I've got to teach you how to do it in a way where You don't forget what you're learning. So when I said that and kept saying over and over and over again, pay attention to your life, pay attention to your life, pay attention to your life, do you want to know what that created? A planner. Like, I can go buy a great book off of some website and write my own life down. You want to know why I created this? Because I wanted to teach you legacy. Leading loudly means you don't get to sit in the shadows. Not where God is asking you to move forward. Hebrews 11:1, it's all about faith. You've got to move faith and do things for things you cannot see. I, I can talk about the Sister Circle all day long. There are things where I can see it. I don't know how we get there, but the last time I checked, Abraham got called out of Ur and was told to move to a land he didn't even know where he was going. When you have vision, an idea of what God wants to do in your life, and you choose to live out loud and lead loudly, Psalm 27:1 says it's God who will quench your fear. It's God who will help you to stand unshakably. Confidence is not loud or showy in that way. It is deeply rooted and contagious. An acorn that gets planted in the dirt is not loud and showy, but it does grow into something you can't ignore. It doesn't I don't mean you're the loudest person in the room because often the person who's the most powerful in the room is the person who has the least amount of words. They're the quietest because they have the most strength under control. So when I say loud, I don't mean noise level. I mean action level. The proof is in the pudding. I did what I said I was gonna do. I moved forward in the vision that God gave me. And just like disease can spread, vision can spread. Healing can spread. An actualized version of what called you can do, it can spread and people can catch the vision. Often the reason why people don't want to do this, because following the vision and following the vision that Christ has given me, given you— 1 Corinthians 11:1 says, Paul said, follow me as I follow Christ. Let me tell you what Christ was doing. He was doing a lot of stuff by himself. He went alone by himself a lot. When he went up on the Mount of Transfiguration, he only took 3 guys with him. He only had 1 disciple who he loved. Now there were 12 who followed and there were thousands who looked on from a distance. But Jesus lived a lonely life. Loneliness, loneliness is an indicator. It's an indicator that you're doing something God asked you to do in a way that he's not asking the masses to do it. And don't worry about it because the right people will find you. I went to Sally Clarkson events years ago. She is a woman who homeschools, but she's all about motherhood. I love her. She has been a powerful force in my life. And I went to her events, y'all. It was in a hotel. It's in a hotel. She did all the speaking. Her children did the music. And, uh, that was it. There was no major staging. There was not lights and camera. And don't get me— don't, don't get me wrong, I'm a concierge person, okay? I can stay at the Hampton Inn or La Quinta or, or a Super 8 if that's what I got to do. Is that it? A Motel 6, something like that. But you better believe that if I got points, or if it's a special occasion like an anniversary, I, I know what to do with the Four Seasons or Ritz-Carlton as well. Okay, so you can be confident because you can see things on both ends of the spectrum. So, uh, Sally would have— she had a very simple There was chocolate on the tables, like Hershey's Kisses. That was it. She said, I'm going to invite you into this room to learn. That's it. Nona Jones, on the other hand, for leaders and business owners and people who are trying to level up their life, she has a very well-baked, very aesthetically pleasing and dynamic to her events. You can be confident whether you are doing it low ticket, high ticket, small group, big group, custom for the masses. Okay, because McDonald's is confident and so is Ruth's Chris. My point is you can be confident because you are walking out what God has asked you to do the way he's asked you to do it, and not compare. Because we've all had McDonald's fries, and I hope you've had a steak from Ruth's Chris. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you are doing it the way God has asked you to do it. When you do it the way God has asked you to do it, this is how you build legacy, because legacy is you passing something uniquely in your hand to someone else. And if anybody could pass the baton, we wouldn't have a race now, would we? I need you to do what God has asked you to do the way he's asked you to do it, and know that as you do it, you'll build your competence. And as you build competence, you'll build your confidence. Practice makes perfect. So who is watching you? Your daughters, your friends, your team members, your neighbors? And what are you teaching them about the legacy God has asked you to leave? Are you taking the baton and are you putting it in their hands? Because when you're doing something that God has asked you to do, there should be somebody else with you on the journey who's learning from you. And everyone who's on the journey with you may not stay with you, I have 2 or 3 interns that have been with me for 3 to 5 years. Most of the interns that join our Sister Circle, they do the internship and then they move on. And the Lord had to teach me to hold people lightly— employees, volunteers, contractors, interns, friends— because the journey that he has me on, the one he's having me build competence in, is my journey. And there may be places in my journey where, because of what I'm called to do, somebody peels off. That isn't personal. That is not— it is not a, a, it's not a hit. It may feel like it. They may even not leave well, but that does not mean that what I'm doing is not what God has asked me to do, that my legacy, that I need to move in loudly and with confidence and with competence, is not what he's asked me to do. It means he has called us each into our own directions, and I've got to give— you've got to give everybody the freedom to do what God has called them to do. 'Cause your legacy comes from you moving forward, leading loudly, like not loudly with your mouth, but loudly in action, that your actions say what you're doing before your mouth does. And then you gotta place it into the hands of other people. What message do you wanna send? Confidence is not about being loud, it's about being sure, sure of who you are in Christ, sure of what you're called to do, bold in that, and sure that he goes with you so you can live out loud and then pass the baton on as you do. But that starts with not having lies in your head. It starts with having a clear vision of what comes next, even if it's not the big thing, it's the next thing. It starts with knowing who you're influencing and being willing to live loudly so that you do that well. It means asking God to tell you the truth that he has about your life so that you can live boldly and confidently. In the life that he's given you to live. Now, when I did this talk a while ago at a conference— I'm gonna tell you these 3 points and then we will save them to talk about them another day. Confidence will come from consistency— that goes back to that competence I was telling you about— not convenience. If you're expecting to build confidence living a life that's convenient, you're not gonna win. You will never be confident because your confidence and the faith that is required to make confidence come doesn't come with you living a life of convenience. Second point, you have to have confidence over condemnation. If you allow the shame that the enemy wants to heap in your mind and on your heart to talk you down or bring you back from what God is asking you to do, you will not win. You have to deal with shame. You have to deal with the pain that has resulted from the guilt that you felt. You have to deal with the voices that are in your head where you feel the burning of the light when you step outside of your corner. You have to deal with that because the condemnation that comes from other people and the shame you feel from the mistakes that you made in the past, the things that you feel like have disqualified you— if you don't deal with that, and that's where therapy comes in, if you don't deal with that, the enemy has something to work with. I cannot tell you, for some of the stuff that I'm writing in this new book, y'all, I can look back and see how many things I did not do because the enemy had something to work with. You have to deal with shame. You have to deal with your, your condemnation, the guilt from your sin. You have to ask God to forgive you, and then you have to let it go. That's why it's a gift, because when you let go what God is no longer holding you in condemnation of, you give yourself the gift of freedom. Freedom to walk with vision. Freedom to walk forward with power. Freedom to walk boldly. Freedom to attack that vision. Freedom to walk in your assignment. That's why you have to deal with it. And then you have to have confidence because you get it from being close to Christ. Many of us are not bold because we're operating on a word that he gave us 20 years ago. If you are not currently close currently in communication, currently quietly confident in your relationship with God, you won't be able to pray bold prayers and experience bold fruit. Last thing, your confidence is your inheritance. You just have to believe that it belongs to you. God, we know that you want us to be confident in Christ first and foremost because you gave us the gift of salvation, and then you've given us the gift of power as we walk and move on this earth. We know that, we believe that, but that doesn't mean that you don't have to tell us like you told Joshua, "Don't fear, be of good courage." It doesn't mean that we don't need encouragement. It doesn't mean that we don't need reminders. It doesn't mean that we don't need to memorize scripture. It doesn't mean that we don't have to do hard things. It doesn't mean that we can avoid hard conversations. It doesn't mean that life is easy. It doesn't mean that things are simple. It just means we have to believe you and keep going. But God, I'm just asking for the girl who's like me, who's been trying to go and life has been throwing her a left hook and a right uppercut every 5 seconds. I'm praying for the girl this morning who tried and failed and is afraid to try again. I'm praying for the woman this morning who is tired of being tired and being on a road that never seems to end. I'm praying for the woman who is on the Yellow Brick Road and it doesn't seem to lead anywhere. Oz is not in sight. I'm praying for the girl who wants to be confident but who feels like she can't be. I'm praying for the girl who wants to cultivate faith, faith, but is feeling so much fear. I'm praying for the woman who is convinced that you are with her but is feeling so very alone. I'm praying that you would make up the gap, that this talk has not only encouraged her, but it has infused her with a sense of power in the Holy Spirit for what she can do to move the needle forward, even if she doesn't see what's coming. Lord, I'm asking also that beyond inspirational words and beyond the scriptures that we read, that you would infuse us with answers, solutions exceedingly above and beyond, going beyond our wildest dreams, with provision, with sight of things in the physical that confirm what you are doing in the spiritual. I pray that you would meet needs. I pray that you would bring the support. I pray that you would provide the answers. I pray that you would give the next steps, that you would allow all the women who are here as they walk out their life in confidence, that you would also allow them to walk in favor, that your favor would be so clearly poured out that there is no question that we're doing what you want us to do. And then when we get to see the tree full grown and we see the legacy around us, would we go, Well, let me tell you about how I had to walk in faith. Would you have us be the women who have the story of how you provided, have the story of how you rescued our families, have the story of how you took care of our health and provided the job? Would you help us to be the women who are encouraging other women and saying, I know how it feels, but you gotta walk in confidence, girl, like you got the faith that God requires because let me tell you, he'll come through. Help us to be women who know that our God comes through. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.