BOAST IN THE LORD
“Glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh.” (Phil.3:3)
Do you recall where you were or how you felt when you heard that President Kennedy was shot? How about the moment you heard of the deaths of Elvis, John Lennon, Princess Diana, George Harrison, or other renowned worldly figures? Your immediate response may have been shock, disbelief, or even momentary trauma. Such feelings can be common as we watch even the world’s finest perish.
Throughout our lives we relate to, emulate, and learn from the “gods” and heroes of this world; thus, we are stunned when we see that they too can die. Death is our great reality check, and it will come knocking at our doors as well. Jeremiah puts it this way: “Death has climbed in through our windows and has entered our fortresses…” (Jeremiah 9:21); no one can hold back its hand. How shall we then live?
One of my all-time favorite passages of scripture is Jeremiah 9:23: “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….” Our lives, as great or simple as they may be, must be about transferring allegiance from the non-gods of this earth to the true and living God. And this means becoming weak that He may be our strength (Psalm 28:7), becoming a servant that we may be great in His kingdom (Mark 10:43), and becoming poor in spirit that we may be rich in Him (Matthew 5:3).
In our world, the weak have always been kicked and driven to submission, servitude, and surrender. But God’s word, from beginning to end, always favors the meek and the lowly. “When we are weak, He is strong,” says the Apostle Paul, and those who recognize this truth will recognize the glorious hand of God in everything they do. Our Lord says that the lowly will be lifted up and that the rich, the proud, the wise, and the strong of this life will be confounded. God reminds the believer, “He (alone) is our strength and our ever-present help…” (Psalm 46:1); and He alone promises to meet all our needs, and in Him alone we can do all things! If God be for us, who can be against us?
Some of these self-exalting, walking, and talking earthly lumps of clay may be prettier, more handsome, richer, wiser, and appear to have everything. But even the greatest of earthly kings (“Elvis has indeed left the building”) perish and return to dust.
Paul says while our outer man decays our inner man is renewed from strength to strength and glory to glory.
“Humility is not thinking less of yourself, it’s thinking of yourself less.” – C.S. Lewis