Here is the revelation that is shaping my life today- I am amazed again by how good God is to me.
1 Corinthians 1:30-31 NLT
[30] God has united you with Christ Jesus. For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself. Christ made us right with God; he made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin. [31] Therefore, as the Scriptures say, “If you want to boast, boast only about the LORD.”
Observation
No boasting because you did nothing. When God does it all then only in Him can I boast. God United me with the message of Christ. My believing, my faith is supernatural. I may think that I discovered it on my own, in my own doing, but the reality is that God leads me to Jesus and the message of his life and death. I can decline His leading, but outside of His leading, no one finds faith in Jesus as their Christ. So no boasting.
“For our benefit God made him to be wisdom itself.” The wisdom of life and rescue and salvation is found in Jesus. I have no wisdom only that which Jesus reveals and leads me into. I do not know the ways to life and wholeness, in Jesus God has brought the wisdom to be revealed through a man that I can understand. I do not create wisdom, I do not study wisdom, I walk with the one who is wisdom itself and follow his lead. So no boasting.
I am right with God through Jesus + nothing I do. “Christ made us right with God.” I do not earn, deserve, work towards, be good enough, to be made right. I bring nothing, nothing at all. It is all Jesus and nothing of me. Jesus alone made me right with God. So, no boasting. “He made us pure and holy, and he freed us from sin.” Not only right standing with God but perfectly right with God. In Jesus, I am made pure, perfect in the sight of God, and as I walk with him I walk into greater levels of holiness, walking separated from the ways of the world and further into the fullness of God’s glory. Again, not me but my being intimate present with Him. I reflect my experience, I am transformed from my intimate experience of His presence, not by my learnings or hard work. So no boasting.
My only boast is in how good my God is to me. Revelation, freedom, life, right standing, are all brought into my life through Him. His patience with my continual laziness, disobedience, brokenness, unawareness, cause me to boast all the more in Him. Why does He put up with me? Must be love, for no other power or reason would stay the course with me. So again, I will boast in Him.
Application
I will live my life taking no personal praise for the goodness of the life I live. I will never elevate myself into a position of personal achievement where I congratulate self in any way. I will only ever boast in the goodness of God for everything good in my life comes from Him. The circumstances of life will never shape my boasting, but rather my boasting will shape my circumstances. I will boast in Him in my circumstances and they will yield and be shaped by my boasting. For God’s plan of redemption is present in every circumstance and boasting clears the clouds that grieving, disappointment, and lack of understanding can often allow to descend and destroy me.
Response
Thank you that you do everything for me. Everything. As it says in 1 Corinthians 1:7 “Now I have every spiritual gift I need as I eagerly wait for the return of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Thank you that you take away self-boasting, I love that I have all good things because of you. From discovery to position, to life, it’s all from you. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Meditation
Meditation truth – “boast only about the LORD.”
Consider
Do you have a deep appreciation for what God has done for you?
Can you hear your boasting voice in any area of your life?
JOURNEY DEEPER
