The Difference Between Arrogance and Confidence
Christ's people who live in the joy of the resurrection may appear to be arrogant at times.
What’s the difference between arrogance and confidence? If you answer that question based on how a particular person acts, you’ll never find the answer. The following behaviors can be either, actually:
· Head held high, chest out, chin up
· Looking someone straight in the eye and saying, “I’m not afraid of anything.”
· Without reluctance promising a future result, for example a victory
· After falling into sin, refusing to beat oneself up with a miserable existence
· Walking up to the church in Wittenberg and posting 95 theses in order to correct the mainstream religion of its errors
· Telling God he must do something
The difference between confidence and arrogance is not how a person behaves. Not what a person says. But on what basis a person does so. A blind person walking with firm steps, one in front of the other right across a busy intersection, may seem like arrogance (which always teams up with ignorance but won’t admit it), but on what basis does the blind person dare to navigate between lethal weapons on wheels? On the basis of sensory perception that anyone reading this simply cannot understand.
What looks like arrogance to us can often be confidence. What we think might be arrogant for us to do or say might not always be so if we do or say it with a sure and certain basis. Standing up to receive the Lord’s Supper or smiling in church isn’t arrogance but confidence, when it’s done with a firm faith in the Lord’s own promises of restoration and renewal. Telling God to do what he says isn’t arrogance but confidence, when it’s done with a sharp ear for what God has said and a childlike trust that says, “But you said you would …” Lovingly and gently pointing out another Christian’s or church’s veering away from the truth of God’s Word isn’t arrogance but confidence, when it’s done with the clear guidance of the Holy Scriptures to back it up.
With special remembrance of Martin Luther on this Reformation Day, listen to his explanation of living in the certain forgiveness of God’s love: “I see a long list of my sins. And yet I am not to look at these sins; I am to act as if I had never committed them.” 2 Corinthians 5:17 agrees, “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.”
Christ’s people who live in the joy of the resurrection may appear to be arrogant at times. Well, so be it! We live with confidence in the Lord’s own promises. Beyond that we pray that the Lord may give us many opportunities to explain our confident behavior to those who have no hope.
Arrogance is an empty boast. Confidence boasts in the Lord.
PRAYER: How tempting it is for me, Lord, to put my trust in that which can and will fail. Expose my empty arrogance that I might flee from it into your safe and secure promises. Trusting confidently in your word, let me live with the certainty that all is well between us. Bring down others whose arrogance keeps them from your love and show them the blessedness of what you promise in Jesus Christ. Amen.
Luther quote from, “Jesus, Remember Me,” (Augsburg Publishing House, Minneapolis, MN, 1998, p. 24)