Galatians 6:14 (NKJV)

‘But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’

Boasting is evil. That thing within man that keeps talking about what he has done and what he has achieved, is evil. I feel disgusted when I catch myself boasting or when I hear someone boasting in whatsoever they’ve done or achieved or in who they are or where they are coming from. It just smells so wrong and so offensive. Why does man delight in bragging and making himself feel so important? Why is there within man, this strong desire to be seen as special and different and better than others? All such boasting is evil for the roots of such things are the sinful nature of man who wants to sit at the center of the life of man, taking the glory that is due to God. That is what makes boasting despicable.

But boasting can be turned around for God. Boasting can become the instrument of self-renunciation, if we constantly boast of our nothingness. Boasting can be of value when the reason for the boast is God Himself. Imagine what it’ll be like if all our boastings is about God. It will show forth the work of the cross as we repeatedly refuse to boast. Once I choose not to boast in the flesh but give all praise to God, I am boasting in the cross because I am validating the work of the cross in crucifying the lust of the flesh and the desires of the world. The world system has no power over me. I have crossed over from the realm of the worldly to the world of the spirit, even by the work of the cross. This is my boast: that the cross has killed me and separated me from the desire to boast in anything but God’s work in me.

‘I am totally nothing. I am less than nothing. I am not fit to lift up my voice to utter a single word of praise to myself. What can I speak of myself outside of Christ? I would be utterly despicable to even imagine myself having any form of goodness to boast of outside of the work of the cross. So Lord, keep me despicable in my own eyes and help me see the cross of Jesus as the only reason for my value in life. And by this cross, teach me to reject and despise any form of human boasting or any sense of worldly bragging; for failure to reject such would be totally evil of me in the crudest of senses. Amen.