Self-Confidence vs. Christ-Confidence

From the time Emilie was a little girl, she longed to be seen, seen by those around, seen by her father, and most of all, seen by Heavenly Father. This longing led her into years of striving, constantly trying to become “good enough” to approach God.

“I thought I had to clean myself up before I could present myself to God,” she admits. “I believed I had to reach a certain level of righteousness and purity before I could confidently stand before him.”

But instead of giving her peace, this mindset left Emilie exhausted and anxious, weighed down by the relentless burden of earning her exaltation. She often wondered, “How much more can I possibly do? Is what I’ve done ever enough?”

For almost four decades, Emilie genuinely believed that confidence before God depended on her building up her spiritual resume. She worked tirelessly to stack up her good deeds, her personal purity, her continual spiritual progress, and her faithful temple participation. She honestly thought God expected her to prove herself worthy of and to him by living an exceptionally moral and religious life.

Emilie’s story leads us to questions many of us, especially those shaped by high-demand religious systems, quietly wrestle with:

• Do we need to make ourselves worthy and clean before we can approach a holy God?
• What kind of resume do we need in hand to stand before him with confidence?
• Is it about our performance, accomplishments, or spiritual devotion?

In the pages that follow, we’ll explore how Emilie’s answer to that question was transformed and how the Bible reshapes our entire understanding of true confidence before God and where it properly comes from.

We’ll begin by examining the appeal and limits of a “good religious resume.” Next, we’ll see how our resume-building leads us in one of two directions. We’ll listen as both the apostle Paul and Jesus invite us to lay our resumes down for something infinitely better. Finally, we’ll discover what that something better looks like for us.

What Gives You Confidence to Approach God?

What gives you peace when you approach God in prayer? What reassures you that you are acceptable in his sight? If you had to hold up a spiritual resume, your record of faithfulness, effort, and devotion, what would be on it?

For many coming from a Latter-day Saints background, it might look something like this:

• Pioneer ancestry
• Born in the covenant to faithful parents
• Baptized at age 8
• Completed Personal Progress
• Attended seminary all four years
• Served a full-time mission and obeyed all mission rules
• Worthy temple recommend holder
• Sealed in the temple
• Always wore garments
• Paid full tithing
• Fulfilled all callings
• Kept the Word of Wisdom
• Regularly led Family Home Evening
• Made “Come Follow Me” a priority
• Sustained the prophet
• Listened to General Conference talks
• Participated in temple work
• Practiced charity and virtue
• Repented whenever you sinned
• Did “all you could do”
• Strived to keep all the commandments
• Endured to the end

Emilie had an impressive resume like this.

She checked every box.

But building a spiritual resume almost always leads in one of two directions: pride or despair. When we feel like we are doing everything right, pride tells us we’ve earned God’s blessings. When we stumble or suffer, despair whispers that we have failed him forever. Emilie would eventually taste both.

She sincerely believed that the more righteous acts she added to her record, the more confidence she would have before God.

But it never worked.

From a young age, Emilie equated worthiness with impressiveness. If she could do enough, be enough, and look clean enough, then maybe God would smile at her. Yet, over time, a quiet fear crept in: “Would it ever be enough? Would ‘I’ ever be enough?”

One memory stands out. It was the weekend of her high school graduation. While most of her classmates stayed out late celebrating, Emilie went home early to get ready to sing for Sunday’s sacrament meeting.

The next morning, she stood before her ward and sang: “I want to be a window to his love, so when you look at me, you will see him…”

It sounded noble, and it even felt holy, but underneath the surface, Emilie felt something else: pressure. “To be a window meant I had to do the work,” she says. “I had to clean myself up if God was going to be seen through me.”

She imagined needing a spiritual squeegee and Windex to scrub away her flaws before God could shine through. Her confidence before God wasn’t built on grace—it was built on grit, on her effort. It rested on how well she polished her heart. That moment etched itself into her soul.

For years afterward, Emilie clung to the belief that God’s blessings and approval hinged on her doing everything right, with the right attitude, consistency, and heart. It was a treadmill she couldn’t step off, a treadmill that led to exhaustion, not peace.

Where Does True Confidence to Approach God Come From?

“Perfectionism became the root of a lot of my spiritual baggage,” Emilie reflects.

From an early age, she learned to believe that if she did A, B, and C, then she would be worthy of God’s love, protection, and blessings.

Her spiritual life became a system of cause and effect, deeply rooted in a favorite teaching from Doctrine and Covenants 82:10, “I the Lord am bound when you do what I say.”

Obedience wasn’t just important. It was everything.

If she performed with the right effort and attitude, she believed God would be obligated to bless her. But if her efforts slipped or her heart wasn’t perfectly aligned, she feared the blessings would slip away too.

Over time, this mindset planted deep roots of anxiety. Emilie lived with what she later described as a “weird kind of confidence,” a confidence that fluctuated based on her performance.

It was confidence in herself, dressed up in the language of devotion and duty.

During a difficult season in her marriage, Emilie faced financial turmoil. But church members rallied around her, and her family’s needs were met. Emilie felt sure she knew why. “Of course, I’m being blessed,” she thought. I’m going to the temple once or twice a week. I’m so faithful. I’m so obedient.” Without realizing it, Emilie had slipped deep into self-righteousness. She genuinely believed her performance had unlocked God’s blessings and that being seen by God was something she had earned.

Even her father echoed the message: “See, Emilie, this is because you have been faithful.”

“Heavenly Father was seeing me,” she remembers. “Heavenly Father had my back. And it was because I was doing A, B, and C.”

It sounded spiritual.

It looked faithful.

But something critical was missing.

“There was no reason for me to go looking for a savior,” Emilie admits. “I was my own. I was in no position even to need anything more than what I had already found.”

Without realizing it, she had built a confidence entirely in herself.

Her resume had become her savior.

At the time, Emilie didn’t realize it, but she had fallen into the trap of self-righteousness, believing that her blessings were the result of her own spiritual performance.

Emilie’s “weird kind of confidence” isn’t unique to her. Today, many religious voices continue offering the same promises: If you follow the proper steps and do the right things, you can approach God with confidence.

In April 2025, President Russell M. Nelson spoke directly to this longing in a General Conference talk titled “Confidence in the Presence of God.” He described the comfort of being able to pray with assurance that Heavenly Father hears, understands, and loves us. He spoke about approaching God “right now” with confidence. Then Nelson pointed his listeners to the key he believed would unlock that confidence, quoting from Doctrine and Covenants 121:45, “Let thy bowels … be full of charity towards all men, … and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God. Brothers and sisters, we can do this! Our confidence can truly wax strong in the presence of God, right now!”

At first glance, it sounds encouraging. Who wouldn’t want to feel confident before God? But beneath the surface, Nelson’s message reflects a tragic and familiar theme: The belief that we build our confidence by polishing our own righteousness.

Here’s the truth: Charity and virtue are good. In fact, for those who trust Christ they are beautiful fruits of a heart changed by grace. But they are not what allows us to approach God confidently.

When charity and virtue become a foundation for spiritual confidence, we don’t just misunderstand grace; we redefine it. This distortion is what makes self-salvation projects so dangerous:

• They speak warmly of God.
• They use the language of holiness.
• They call people to devotion.

Yet, instead of pointing us to Christ’s sufficiency, they quietly turn us back to our sincerity and our striving for security. Instead of fixing our eyes on Jesus, they urge us to inspect ourselves.

Confidence based on our performance will always be fragile. When we feel like we’re doing well, pride creeps in. When we fail, despair takes over. Either way, our eyes stay locked on ourselves instead of our Savior.

That’s why Emilie’s impressive resume, despite all its devotion, never gave her lasting peace.
And it’s why so many who follow a works-based path still live with nagging uncertainty, even while doing “everything right.”

When we trust our resumes, there are really only two directions we can go:

• We become self-righteous, giving ourselves credit for the blessings we see: “Of course I’m being blessed. I’m so faithful. I’m so obedient.”
• Or, when hardship comes, or we fall short, we sink into despair, fearful that we haven’t done enough.

Either way, we are left staring at ourselves and still wondering if God truly sees us.

So, where do we turn when personal performance no longer brings peace?

We turn to the gospel, the good news of a better resume written by a perfect Savior.

When Is It Time to Stop Trusting Our Resumes?

If anyone could have stood before God with a resume full of confidence, it would have been the apostle Paul. Before he met Christ, Paul, then known as Saul of Tarsus, had impeccable spiritual credentials.

He was born into the right family, belonged to the right religious groups, and rigorously kept God’s law. He didn’t just follow the system; he excelled in it. In Philippians 3:5–6, Paul lists his religious resume:

“Circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless.”

In modern terms, Paul had it all:

• Pedigree (born into the covenant people)
• Education and authority (a Pharisee trained by the best teachers)
• Zeal and devotion (defending what he believed was God’s truth)
• Outward morality (faultless in keeping religious commands)

If anyone could claim to be “confident in the flesh” (Philippians 3:4), it was Paul.
His resume outshone that of nearly everyone else.

Yet something happened that changed everything. After encountering Jesus Christ, Paul didn’t just reassess his resume; he completely rejected it.

“Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him” (Philippians 3:7–9, ESV).

Paul uses a striking word to describe his lifetime of achievements: rubbish. Rubbish is translated from the Greek word skubalon, meaning garbage, dung, manure, or excrement.

Why would he speak so strongly?

Were all those good things suddenly evil?

Not exactly. It wasn’t the actions themselves that were the problem; it was the trust he had placed in them. Paul realized that trying to stand before God on the basis of his own righteousness wasn’t just ineffective; it was spiritually deadly. Here’s the turning point: Paul wanted to be found in Christ,

“Not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God that depends on faith.” (Philippians 3:9).

Paul abandoned the dream that his obedience, background, or devotion could ever make him right with God. He tore up his resume and clung to a righteousness that came entirely from outside himself: the perfect righteousness of Jesus Christ, received by faith.

Picture Paul standing before God on judgment day. On his own, he had a towering list of accomplishments to boast about. But he knew if he tried to present that list, it would avail him nothing. His only answer, his only confidence, was Jesus.

Not Paul’s name.

Not Paul’s performance.

Only Christ.

This was a radical shift. It was the exact opposite of everything Paul had built his life on. And it was the opposite of what Emilie believed for so many years. It might even be the opposite of what you have been taught. But it is the clear and beautiful message of the gospel:

Our confidence before God does not come from ourselves.

It comes from Christ alone.

Paul’s experience poses a loving but devastating challenge to the LDS worldview because if even a “spiritual superstar” like Paul concluded that personal righteousness could not give him confidence before God, how could any of us possibly expect our resumes to succeed where his failed? Paul had more reasons to boast than almost anyone else. Yet he counted it all garbage compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ.

The implication is clear: No matter how devout we are, no matter how impressive our list of achievements, personal righteousness can never open the way to God.

Why Is It Foolish to Trust in Our Own “Righteousness” and Resumes?

Jesus himself addressed this danger long before Paul’s transformation. He warned that trusting in our own goodness and trusting in our resumes isn’t just foolish. It’s deadly.

In Luke 18:9–14, Jesus told a parable aimed specifically “at some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous.”

Two men went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, a respected religious leader, much like Paul had once been. The other was a tax collector, despised by society as a traitor and sinner.

The Pharisee’s prayer reads like a spiritual resume:

“God, I thank you that I am not like other men—extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get” (Luke 18:11–12 ESV).

He recites his virtues.

He reminds God of his devotion.

He holds up his life as proof that he deserves to be seen and blessed.

By contrast, the tax collector stands far off. He won’t even lift his eyes to heaven. He simply prays,

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” (Luke 18:13)

No resume.

No list of merits.

Just a desperate plea for mercy.

Then comes the shocking verdict. Jesus says,

“I tell you, this man [the tax collector] went down to his house justified, rather than the other” (Luke 18:14).

The religious man with the impressive resume left the temple unaccepted. The broken sinner who begged for mercy went home right with God. Why?

Because “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” The Pharisee exalted himself by trusting in his own righteousness. The tax collector humbled himself by confessing his need for God’s righteousness. Only one of them received God’s approval that day—and it wasn’t the one “trusting in himself.”

This parable couldn’t be clearer: No spiritual resume, no matter how polished, can justify us before God.

The moment we think, “God will accept me because I’ve done X, Y, and Z,” we become like that Pharisee, and we miss the entire point of grace.

Jesus wants us to see that our only hope is God’s mercy so that we come to him with empty hands, acknowledging our sins and our needs—and he, by his grace, fills them.

The tax collector had nothing to boast about. Yet he received what the boasting Pharisee did not:

• Forgiveness
• Acceptance
• Justification

For someone raised in a religious system built on striving, whether Mormonism or any works-based faith, this teaching is jarring. It shakes the foundation we’ve stood on for so long.

It’s not that God doesn’t care about righteous living; he absolutely does. But righteous living is the fruit of being made right with God, not the foundation for it. The Pharisee’s fasting and tithing weren’t bad things. Charity and virtue aren’t bad, either. The problem comes when we trust in them as the basis for our confidence before God.

So ask yourself honestly: When you approach God, are you boasting in what you’ve done or begging for mercy through what Jesus has done?

That question is the difference between going home justified or not.

What Kind of Resume Will Give You Confidence to Approach God?

If no spiritual resume can justify us before God, then what will?

The tax collector shows us the answer, not through a list of achievements, but through an empty, desperate plea:

“God, be merciful to me, a sinner.”

He brought no credentials.

No boasts.

No merits.

He came with nothing but need, and God met him with mercy.

Jesus deepens this lesson by using another powerful image: a door.

In John 10:9, Jesus declares:

“I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved.”

He doesn’t say, “I am one of many doors,” or “Bring your best work to help you through.”

He simply says, “I am the door.”

In Matthew 7:13 14, Jesus describes this door as narrow; he says,

“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction… For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”

Why is the gate narrow?

Because it only fits one person and no baggage. You can’t squeeze through carrying your resume. You can’t squeeze through with your charity, your temple worship, your tithing records, your years of faithful service. You can only come through by trusting entirely in Jesus himself.

The door is narrow because it forces us to let go of everything else we trusted in and hold onto him alone.

It’s not “faith in Christ plus my obedience.”

It’s not “faith in Christ plus my righteousness.”

It’s Christ or nothing.

That’s why Jesus says plainly, “No one comes to the Father except through me” (John 14:6). No spiritual resume will fit through the door. Only a desperate sinner, clinging to Christ, can enter because Jesus is enough.

This is both humbling and freeing. It humbles us because we must admit we bring nothing of our own. It frees us because the burden to prove ourselves is finally lifted. There is no boasting at the foot of the cross, only gratitude. There is no resume we need to build, only a Savior who has already built everything for us.

The narrow door shuts out pride and opens wide the arms of grace.

The tax collector found it.

Jesus was enough for Paul.

Jesus was enough for Emilie.

Jesus is enough for you.

Why Is Christ’s Resume the Only One That Counts?

Let’s step back and summarize:

Why does our own resume always fail, and why does Christ’s succeed?

The answer lies in the gap between God’s holiness and our sinfulness.

God is perfectly holy. Habakkuk 1:13 says, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil.” He is utterly set apart, unstained, untouchable by sin. And us? Even our best efforts are polluted.

Isaiah 64:6 declares: “We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.” Even our “good things,” when offered as a way to earn favor, are like filthy rags before a holy God because they come from hearts that have still fallen short.

Paul writes it plainly, “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23) and “None is righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10).

The playing field is level. Your spiritual resume and mine are stamped with the same bold verdict: INSUFFICIENT. And that’s why we need Jesus Christ so desperately.

Jesus is the only person who ever lived a life that fully pleased God. His resume is flawless.

Here are just a few highlights:

First, Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life. He never sinned. He always did the Father’s will, fulfilling every command perfectly. As 1 Peter 2:22 says, “He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth.” At both his baptism and his transfiguration, God declared from heaven, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” Only Jesus lived in a way that fully pleased God, perfectly keeping the law we could never keep.

Second, Jesus offered a sacrificial death for sins. He did what only a perfect Savior could do: he willingly gave his life as an atoning sacrifice for sinners. As Paul explains, “For our sake, [God] made him (Christ) to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). On the cross, all our guilt was laid on Jesus, and in exchange, all his righteousness was credited to those who trust him. This is the breathtaking “Great Exchange.” When Jesus cried out, “It is finished!” (John 19:30), it was as if a giant “PAID” stamp was placed across the debt of every believer’s life.

Third, Jesus secured resurrection and eternal life. On the third day, he rose from the dead, proving that his sacrifice was accepted and that sin and death were forever conquered. Even now, the risen Christ “always lives to make intercession” for those who come to God through him (Hebrews 7:25). Our resume is no longer our own—it is Jesus himself, alive and pleading on our behalf before the Father.

Finally, Jesus is the Son of God and the only mediator between God and humanity. As 1 Timothy 2:5 declares, “There is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.” Because he is fully God, his worthiness is infinite. Because he became fully man, his righteousness can truly count for us.

When we say Christ’s resume is the only one that counts, we mean it literally.

Through faith, it’s as if Jesus writes our name on his perfect record and presents it to the Father:
“This one is with me.” Our filthy rags are taken away. We are clothed in Christ’s perfect robe.

This is what it means to be justified by faith, to be declared righteous not because of anything we have done, but because of what Jesus has done for us. Romans 4:5 rejoices: “And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.”

Did you catch that? God justifies the ungodly. Not the good enough. Not the nearly there. The ungodly—those who come empty-handed, trusting in Christ alone.

How can he do that and still be just? Because our sins were charged to Jesus, and Jesus’s righteousness was credited to us. It’s the most astonishing trade in all of history: He took our filthy garments and gave us his spotless robe.

Picture standing before God at the gates of heaven. If you come clothed in your own achievements, you’ll be turned away, naked and filthy.

But if you come clothed in Christ’s righteousness, the gates will swing wide open because God will see his Son’s perfection covering you. This is the imagery Revelation 7:14 gives: “They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”

We don’t sew the robe ourselves. We simply wash in Jesus’ blood—and he gives us a pure, clean garment.

In practical terms, this changes everything.

It means our confidence to approach God can never rest on “Have I done enough?”

It can only rest on “Christ is enough!”

And he is.

When Emilie finally understood this, it changed her life.

She realized that all her years of trying to be worthy on her own were like running on a treadmill, working up a sweat but getting nowhere closer to heaven.

The moment she placed her trust in Christ and his finished work, she experienced something she had longed for but never found: Rest.

The burden of self-made righteousness fell off her shoulders.

She found peace, not in herself, but in the righteousness of Christ freely given to her.

Will You Trust Your Resume or Christ’s?

For most of her life, Emilie had tried to clean herself up before approaching God. Whenever she sinned, her instinct was to step back, to fix herself, to prove she was worthy again before daring to come near. “That was my MO,” Emilie says.“I didn’t want to approach my maker with how ugly and sinful I was. I tried to live worthily, cleanly, for a length of time before I went to God.”

It was a white-knuckled grip on self-effort: “I’ve got to get myself to a level of righteousness and purity before I can approach God.”

That mindset, the old resume, ran deep.

But everything began to shift when she heard a preacher pose a simple, piercing question: When you sin, do you try to clean yourself up before going to God, or do you boldly approach the throne of grace?

For the first time, Emilie realized she had spent her life trying to secure her own salvation, trying to work her way to the celestial kingdom. And if she had succeeded, she admits, “I would have patted myself on the back.”

But belonging to God, being seen by him, was a far better thing than earning his favor. “Now I know I am chosen. I am loved. I am forgiven. I am accepted. I am included. I am wonderfully made. And I am not condemned.”

Because there is a new resume covering her, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).

No longer does she need to hide, delay, or clean herself up. She boldly approaches the throne of grace. She runs straight to God, not because she is clean, but because Christ is.“Being seen by God is so much safer and more secure,” Emilie says, “than trying to secure my own salvation by my own works.”

Now, she invites others who are weary and striving to do the same, “To anyone struggling in their sin: boldly approach the throne of grace. Boldly approach God. Seek his love, his forgiveness. Find rest. Find peace in Jesus.”

Because the gospel is good news without strings attached.

There is salvation and hope in Jesus alone.

So what about you?

Will you keep trusting your own resume, or will you finally lay it down and trust in Christ’s?

Will you keep trying to be seen by God through your own righteousness, or will you rest in the righteousness Christ freely gives?

Today can be the day you boldly approach the throne of grace.

Today can be the day you find the peace and rest your soul was made for.

Jesus is enough for you.

“Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).