Believe in Who?

I was reading a writing by a fitness junkie who also seems to train incessantly.  I am not against such a person and actually think it is awesome how people can find time to do something they love.  I just hope the exercise is their hobby and not their addiction.  The author is trying to convince others to believe in themselves.  I, too, believe this to be important, but I also believe there is a line where you are worshipping yourself and not God.  I feel compelled to comment on the following as it was written in their blog:

"Jesus returns to his hometown of Nazareth.  Now Jesus has been all through the country teaching, prophesying and performing amazing miracles- healing the sick, making the blind to see, causing the lame to walk.  ...  He isn’t able to do much at all in Nazareth- no great miracles at all.  He’s proven he can do these.  He’s done them before.  Why can’t he do them in His hometown? The answer - "because of their unbelief". The Word says, "Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief" and again "Now He could do no mighty work there ... and He marveled because of their unbelief."

"The 'belief' that we’re talking about here was a belief in Him.  However, the concept is the same [as believing in yourself].  Without belief it cannot be done.  It’s certainly a theme repeated in other parts of the Bible as well, “Without  faith it’s impossible to please Him.”

"You may want to think about this, if the Son of God requires belief in order to achieve His goals, make no mistake, YOU are going to require belief in order to reach your goals!!!

"Find a way to believe in yourself. You can do all things.

"Believe in you!!" 

I find it imperative to point out that the Son of God, Jesus the Christ, does not need anything from any human to achieve His goals.  Anyone who elevates themselves to a thought process that believes that the Jesus "needs" something from them is worshipping something and it isn't the Son of God.  Jesus came to serve and He served all of mankind by offering Himself as a sacrifice.  We have the opportunity of choosing.  We can choose to accept it or turn it down.  If everyone refused Him, He has still achieved His goal, which is to provide a way for man to know and reach God.

In this example, Jesus does not do great miracles because the people choose not to have them done.  The sense of this writing is that He purposely chose not to do the miracles because He was aware of how the people did not believe in Him.  They had refused Him.  We find a similar time when Jesus was on the cross.  The religious leaders say for Him to come down from the cross and heal Himself if He is the Messiah.  Jesus does not.  He cannot come down because if He does He will be unable to save those very ones mocking Him who do not believe in Him and this will negate His goal.  But He also will not come down in a miraculous manner because they do not believe.  That is, they do not believe His Word, and if they don't believe what He says then they will only believe in His works. 

Believing in works and not words is not faith.  All we get are His Words and we choose to believe His Words or we don't.  It's called faith.  We either believe what He says or we don't.  This has absolutely nothing to do with belief in ourselves.  Jesus prays to the Father in John 17:8 referring to the disciples, "I gave them the words You gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from You, and they believed that You sent Me."  That is faith - believing the words of God in who Christ is and Who He came from. 

I also have some terrible news for this person.  You can NOT do all things.  That is a lie from Satan himself.  This is the same lie he told Eve.  We cannot do all things.  We do not have the ultimate authority.  We get to do what God allows us to do.  We have the abilities He provided to us when He created us and no more.  Does anyone know how many hairs we have?  Yet God has them numbered.  No one knows us more intimately than our Creator does.  Why would anyone consider that they have more authority than God and can do anything?  It is quite preposterous!  The verse in Philippians is very clear, "You can do all things IN CHRIST".  Why was this portion of the verse left out - intentional deception?  The only way to do all things is in the power of the Creator who has all authority in heaven and over the earth.

I would declare to this person to believe in Christ.  Accept His belief in you.  Let your belief in yourself be only through Him.  Do not see yourself apart from how Christ values you.  You will find that you are much more valuable than you thought you were or could have imagined apart from Christ.