We live in a culture that loves to boast.

The world tells us our value lies in particular areas of life – wealth, status, power, beauty – and that when we have acquired one of these, we should boast.

To boast means to “talk with excessive pride and self-satisfaction about achievements, possessions, or abilities.” Is it wrong to be proud of what you achieve in life? No! But when it comes to boasting, our culture’s fundamental issue is boasting in things that provide false security – things that fade and crumble in the end.

Boasting isn’t a new cultural trend. In the first century, the apostle Paul directly addresses both the Greeks’ boasting in their fancy speech and philosophy and the Jewish people’s boasting in their religiousness and morality. He writes to these groups in Corinth:

God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God … in order that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

– 1 Corinthians 1:28-31, NRSV

Paul stresses that if anyone boasts, we should boast in the cross: the saving work Christ has done in each of our lives. Such counter-cultural boasting makes no sense to the world surrounding us.

This month, I’m asking the Holy Spirit to convict me when I boast or am tempted to boast, whether in thought or speech. If I boast, I want to boast in the cross. Will you join me?

Something to Boast In
Rachel Lohman

May 9, 2016 [printfriendly]