Tag: boasting

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Romans Devotionals

Humility

Romans

Do not boast that you are better than those branches. But if you do boast—you do not sustain the root, but the root sustains you.

Then you will say, “Branches were broken off so that I might be grafted in.”

True enough; they were broken off because of unbelief, but you stand by faith. Do not be arrogant, but beware… (Romans 11:18-20)

In this passage, Paul is addressing Gentile Christians who might be tempted to boast about their salvation, telling the Jews, “Yes, you may have been considered God’s people once, but now it’s us who are God’s people.”

And Paul tells them, “Don’t boast that you are better than them. You are only part of God’s people because of grace. Jesus is the root and by his grace, he sustains you in your faith.

“You’re not part of God’s people because you are such wonderful people. You are only part of God’s people because you realized your weakness and your need for salvation, and you put your faith in Jesus.

“And by his grace, God welcomed you into his family. And if that’s the case, what are you boasting about?”

I don’t think many of us boast our superiority to the Jews. But how many of us boast, if only in our own minds, about our superiority to other Christians?

We’re more mature. We know more. We have all these gifts. God uses us. But these other Christians…not so much.”

One thing that amazes me about the apostle Peter is something he said in one of his letters:

To those who have received a faith equal to ours… (2 Peter 1:1)

Peter didn’t say, “I’m an apostle. I’m superior to you. You need to respect me.”

Rather he said, “your faith is equal to ours.”

Why? Because he recognized he didn’t support the root, but that the root supported him.

His salvation came not from his own righteousness, but “through the righteousness of our God and Savior Jesus Christ.” (2 Peter 1:1b)

Let us always keep that heart of humility, never looking down on other Christians, but treating them as people whose faith is equal to ours in the sight of God.

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Acts Devotionals

Living with a clean conscience

Acts

Paul’s words are very striking in verse 1.

My brothers, I have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day. (Acts 23:1)

How many of us can say the same thing? That our consciences are clear before God? That all we do in life and in ministry has been done with a good conscience? That not only our actions, but our motives are pure before him?

But even if we feel like we have a clean conscience, it’s interesting to note what Paul told the Corinthians in his first letter to them.

It is of little importance to me that I should be judged by you or by any human court.

In fact, I don’t even judge myself. For I am not conscious of anything against myself, but I am not justified by this. It is the Lord who judges me.

So don’t judge anything prematurely, before the Lord comes, who will both bring to light what is hidden in darkness and reveal the intentions of the hearts.

And then praise will come to each one from God. (1 Corinthians 4:3-5)

In other words, just because we feel our consciences are clean, it doesn’t mean that our actions and motives are always right.

So what am I saying? Constantly search your heart. Even if you think your actions and motives are right, pray each day as David did.

Search me, God, and know my heart;
test me and know my concerns.

See if there is any offensive way in me;
lead me in the everlasting way. (Psalm 139:23-24)

And remember: even if you feel like you’re doing well, you do so by the grace of God. There’s no boasting in that.

And when we’re not doing well, it is the grace of God that sustains us.

So let us live each day by that grace. (Romans 5:1-2)

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1 Corinthians

No room for boasting

1 Corinthians

In illustrating the “foolishness of God,” Paul uses the people in the Corinthian church as an example.

Now if you were going to save as many people as possible, wouldn’t you start with the rich, powerful, wise, and influential? Wouldn’t that make sense?

But Paul says of the Corinthians,

Brothers, think of what you were when you were called.

Not many of you were wise by human standards; not many were influential; not many were of noble birth.

But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.

He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things–and the things that are not–to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him. (1 Corinthians 1:26-29)

This is not to say God doesn’t save the rich, powerful, wise, and influential. Paul says here, “not many,” not, “not any.”

Still, God saves people not because of what they have or who they are, but because of his grace.

And time and again, he puts to shame those who claimed to be strong and wise by those who were, by their standards, their inferiors.

But these “inferiors” put the strong and wise to shame by one thing: their faith in God.

For instance, God took an old man named Noah who was willing to actually take God at his word and build a huge ark when no one needed a boat that big (if they needed one at all).

Noah’s neighbors must have thought he was nuts. But in the end, he was proven wise when the rain started to fall and the flood waters started to rise.

Later, God took the Jewish people out of captivity in Egypt and had them surround a fortified city, just marching around it for 6 days.

Then on the seventh day, they marched around it 7 times, blowing their horns, after which they shouted and charged the city.

When Joshua’s soldiers first heard this plan, they must have questioned Joshua’s sanity. For that matter, the inhabitants must have wondered what those crazy Jews were doing.

But when the Israelites charged on that seventh day, the walls fell and they captured the city.

Years later, God took a bunch of young Jewish exiles in Babylon who refused to eat the food provided by the king because it was against their dietary laws, and instead just ate vegetables and drank water.

Their fellow exiles must have thought they were out of their minds. In the end, however, these four men were not only healthier than their compatriots, but wiser and more capable as well.

Time and again, throughout history, you see God doing this kind of thing.

And he did it again through the cross.

What people considered as a sign of weakness and defeat, an ignoble death on the cross, God used for our salvation. And he used it to save, not those whom the world admires, but those whom it despised.

People despise us because they consider us weak. Because to them, only the intellectually inferior and emotionally crippled need God. They despise us because we would put our trust in him instead of ourselves.

But ultimately, they will be put to shame.

A warning, however.

Remember that you have nothing to boast about if you are a Christian. It’s not because of who you are or what you have done that God saved you. It’s because of who God is and what he has done.

As Paul wrote,

It is because of him that you are in Christ Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from God–that is, our righteousness, holiness and redemption. (1 Corinthians 1:30)

So as Paul concludes,

Therefore, as it is written: “Let him who boasts boast in the Lord.” (1 Corinthians 1:31)

Who are you boasting in? Yourself? You will be put to shame.

In God? Then there is no room for pride.

What is your attitude today?

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Romans

No room for boasting

Romans

One of the big conclusions that Paul comes down to in this passage is found in verses 27-30.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith.

For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law.

Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too?

Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. (Romans 3:27-30)

In short, when it comes to grace, there is no room for boasting.

God does not accept us because we keep the law perfectly. Nor does he accept us because of our racial background, as the Jews thought.

He accepts us solely because we have put our faith in Christ’s work on the cross.

I think because people don’t understand this, two problems often creep up among Christians.

One is the Christian who says, “How can God accept me when I mess up so much?”

Their problem is that deep down, they still think they have to earn God’s acceptance, and because of that, they feel inadequate. They feel undeserving of God’s love.

But that’s the whole point. Grace is all about the undeserving receiving God’s love and acceptance.

Nobody can stand before God and say, “God, you’re so lucky to have me as your child. Look at how good I am. Look at all the things I can do for your kingdom.”

Instead, all of us stand before God, spiritually poor and needy, with nothing in our hands to offer him. As the old hymn puts it,

Nothing in my hand I bring,
Simply to the cross I cling;

Naked, come to thee for dress;
Helpless, look to thee for grace.

The other problem is the Christian who, because they think they’re good, look down on others who are “not so good.”

They become like the Pharisees, judging all those around them, without seeing their own failures and need for grace.

And instead of extending grace to those who need it, they instead bash them further down.

How about you? Do you truly understand God’s grace in your life? Or are you depressed because you think God can’t accept you?

Worse, are you judging others you consider lesser than you and withholding God’s grace from them?

Here’s a good test for you. When you hear the words “amazing grace,” do they touch your soul? Or are they just words to you?

May “Amazing Grace,” not just be a song, but words that penetrate your very soul.

For when they do, you will never be the same, in how you see yourself, and how you see others.

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Jeremiah

Something to boast about

Jeremiah

This is what the Lord says:  “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this:  that he understands and knows me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.  (Jeremiah 9:23-24)

The people of Judah were boasting in their own wisdom and strength.  Some even boasted that they were God’s people because they were circumcised. 

But all these things were meaningless because they had turned their backs on God and were living their own way.  And so judgment was about to fall on them.

What about you?  What are you proud of?  Your education?  Your job?  Your wealth?  Your position?  The things that you own? 

They are all meaningless if you don’t know the Lord.

This doesn’t mean that we just know about God.  Many people know about God.  Satan knows more about God than probably any of us do.  But do we truly know him? 

Do we walk in close relationship with him, delighting in the things that he delights and despising the things he despises?  Do we even know God well enough that we know what he delights in and despises?

To truly know God and what he’s like.  Now that’s something to boast about. 

And it’s a lifelong process.  To not only know what he delights in and despises, but to have our minds transformed so that we delight in and despise the same things that he does.

How much time do we spend getting to know God?  How much time do we spend with him everyday?  Is it a priority in our lives? 

Paul wrote this,

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. 

I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God and is by faith. 

I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, and so, somehow, to attain to the resurrection from the dead.  (Philippians 3:8-11)

To know Jesus was Paul’s passion.  Is it yours?

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Isaiah

What do we boast in?

Isaiah

I read a story once of a little boy that had made a bunch of paper boats and paper planes from some old newspapers he found in the basement of his house.  He was so proud of them, he brought them to his father and mother.

Unfortunately, it was kind of damp in the basement, and so the newspapers smelled really bad as a result.

So his parents, much to the child’s dismay, quickly threw out the source of his pride.  (They were nice enough, however, to give him some fresh paper to make some new planes and boats with).

In this passage, the people of Judah were proud and arrogant.

They were proud of their “spiritual knowledge” in following the divination of the Philistines.

They were proud of their prosperity, with all their gold and silver, as well as the horses and chariots in their army.

But Isaiah warned that the day would come when all the things they took pride in would come to nothing.  And instead of walking in pride, they would be humbled and ashamed of everything they had done.

He wrote,

Go into the rocks, hide in the ground from dread of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty!

The eyes of the arrogant man will be humbled and the pride of men brought low; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day.

The Lord Almighty has a day in store for all the proud and lofty, for all that is exalted (and they will be humbled), for all the cedars of Lebanon, tall and lofty, and all the oaks of Bashan, for all the towering mountains and all the high hills, for every lofty tower and every fortified wall, for every trading ship and every stately vessel.

The arrogance of man will be brought low and the pride of men humbled; the Lord alone will be exalted in that day, and the idols will totally disappear.  (10-18)

In other words, like the child, many people will come before God proud of what they’ve accomplished.

But when their accomplishments are revealed for the dirty, smelly rags that they are, everything they took pride in will become their shame.

And so they will throw away the things that they were so proud of and flee from the Lord because they will be too ashamed to stand in his presence.  Instead, they will hide in fear of his judgment.  (Isaiah 22:19-21)

So Isaiah said,

Stop trusting in man, who has but a breath in his nostrils.  Of what account is he?  (22)

What is Isaiah saying?  Stop trusting in yourselves, your wisdom, and the things that you have accomplished.  All you’ve done and all that you have are of no worth.  They will pass away.

Instead turn your eyes and your hearts toward God.  Put your trust in him.  He is the one we are to boast in, not ourselves.

In what do you put your pride?  In what do you put your trust?

May our pride and trust not be in ourselves, but in Jesus.  For as Paul put it in quoting Isaiah,

Anyone who trusts in [Jesus] will never be put to shame.  (Romans 10:11)