" He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool." - Proverbs 28:26.
Self-confidence, self-reliance, pride of character, sense of power, consciousness of strength, self-possession, - these make a man great in the eyes of the world, and a fool in the sight of God. For strength is in the consciousness of weakness, not in the consciousness of strength. Wisdom is in the consciousness of ignorance; and true confidence is in the utter mistrust of self. Man by himself is a fragment. He is the sport of circumstances, - the foot-ball of time. Yea, though he have imperial power and subdue the world, if his trust be in himself, it is in a reed shaken with the wind. Man is complete only in God, only in Christ. Let the tree laugh at the soil and glory in its bared roots; the folly were not so great as that of him who trusteth in his own heart.
Trust not in your own heart. For he that does so, trusts in the heart of a fool. You have been deceived by it a thousand times. You know it to be incorrigibly given to falsehood. It is in the pay of Satan, and would lure you in a flowery path going to destruction. Self-trust is the abandonment of God. To go forth in the consciousness of your own strength, wisdom, or virtue, is to go forth as Goliath; but what is your stupendous sword, what your brazen armor, in comparison with the stone of the brook in the hand of faith? " You have heard a great deal of faith, and cannot understand it." Know that it is just the opposite of your self-trust. It is the genuine source of strength and victory; you have but the counterfeit.
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