WHERE IS BOASTING?

WHERE IS BOASTING?

Rom 3:27-28

27 Where is boasting then? It is excluded. By what law? of works? Nay: but by the law of faith.

28 Therefore we conclude that a man is justified by faith without the deeds of the law.

John 15:5

5 I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

          My wife and I recently attended a three day conference where we previewed new choral music. Our church music teaches much of our theology. It is subtle and subliminal rather than a full frontal assault upon our senses. We receive it readily and remember it compulsively. We should, therefore, filter it carefully. One piece began with a sentence that went something like this: “No success can be claimed by any of God’s creatures.” It was like I had been slapped! Tears flooded my eyes and I immediately knew that much of the progress in ministry I had claimed as my own.

          There is no success without God! Without Him we can do nothing! Yet we praise our natural abilities and we boast our superior education as reasons for God’s blessings. When we see Stephen stoned or Paul in jail we click our tongues thinking that these saints must have made some mistake. We think there must have been a horrible miscalculation in methodology. Any preaching, we reason, that produces a violent reaction like stoning or imprisonment must not be wise. We conclude that Stephen and Paul were unsuccessful and, had we been there, we might have had done better.

          Where is boasting then? Boasting will be specifically excluded from heaven. Human effort in salvation is specifically excluded. He chooses the fool to shame the wise. Heaven will ring with praise but it will all be for our God.

Dear Lord, forgive me for claiming any of your glory. Forgive me for claiming any of your power. I am dirt with live breathed in. You are the breath of life. Let all of my boasting be turned to praise. AMEN