How Confident Are You?

Mornings in my house are the same every day. I wake up and walk to the bathroom. On my way there, I pause at the top of the stairs and look down into the living room. My Schnauzer, Holly, is always laying on the couch. She looks up at me and I say, "Good morning, Holly! How's my baby?" She then puts her head down like I'm no one interesting and I go about my routine. I go back into my room and all of a sudden, she appears in my doorway, excited that I'm awake. I sit down on the floor in the middle of my room and invite her in. She ducks her head, squats on her back legs, and approaches me like a peon approaching a high king who can order a person's execution for looking at him wrong. I keep calling her to come into my room and play with me, but she approaches me that way every time. She won't enter my room if there's some sort of a barrier between me and her. This morning it was my purse that was sitting next to me. I moved it but she still wouldn't come in further.

Smokey, on the other hand, knows he's my baby and pushes his way into my room, plops down on my lap, and rolls over for his morning belly rub. He jumps over the shoe or walks around the purse and doesn't let those things come between us. Smokey knows that he's loved and takes every opportunity to get some of that love. Holly knows she's loved but doesn't really have the courage to claim alot of that love for herself. I kind of got frustrated yesterday and just said, "Holly! Approach me with confidence and you'll be spoiled beyond your wildest dreams!"

My statement reminded me of Hebrews 4:16. It says, "Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Galatians 3:26-4:7 talks about us being sons (and daughters) of God. And since we're his kids, that means we're his heirs. I looked up "heir" on Merriam-Webster and it said a related word was "claimant." We have the liberty to claim what God has for ourselves. What's that? Romans 6:22-23 says that it's freedom from sin and eternal life.

Check out this verse from Galatians 3:28-29- "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham's seed, and heirs according to the promise."

Since God loves us so much and wants to spoil the pants off us, let's approach God with confidence. He's not going to smite us if we look at him wrong. If that were true, we'd all be dead before we emerged from the womb. He wants us to come to him with confidence- to proclaim to the world that we are heirs and heiresses of God.