6 November 2015 - boast in the lord

For I will not dare to speak of anything
except what Christ has accomplished through me

There aren't many of us who can say this. We don't going around boasting loudly. But if we were to boast, what subject would we choose? In our hearts, are we more proud of our own accomplishments or "in what pertains to God." If we are honest, our hearts still boast of our own accomplishments. That sort of makes sense when we think about our desires and how we spend our time. Most of the time the his Kingdom is second and our kingdoms are first.

A rich man had a steward
who was reported to him for squandering his property.
He summoned him and said,
‘What is this I hear about you?
Prepare a full account of your stewardship,
because you can no longer be my steward.’

We squander the gifts of the master by doing our own thing and putting ourselves first. Eventually we realize that we don't actually have any strength on our own. There comes a point when we realize that we are entirely dependent on our master.

‘What shall I do,
now that my master is taking the position of steward away from me?
I am not strong enough to dig and I am ashamed to beg.

It is at this point that we must lay down our claims to strength. We must lay aside any claims to accomplishment that aren't for the master and his Kingdom.

He called in his master’s debtors one by one.
To the first he said, ‘How much do you owe my master?’
He replied, ‘One hundred measures of olive oil.’
He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note.
Sit down and quickly write one for fifty.’
Then to another he said, ‘And you, how much do you owe?’
He replied, ‘One hundred measures of wheat.’ 
He said to him, ‘Here is your promissory note;
write one for eighty.’

We can't claim extra olive oil so that we can have some olive oil which is ours apart from what our master owns. We can't claim extra measures of wheat so that we can speak of them apart from what Christ has accomplished in us, apart from the daily bread he gives, the bread from heaven. The beauty of this is that when we no longer insist on speaking of our own accomplishments or our own merits we free others at the same time. We help them to realize that the only debt they truly owe is to the master, to Jesus himself.

When we insist on our own olive oil the world is not able to fully experience the anointing that God wants to give by his Holy Spirit. When we insist on our own wheat the world does not feel free to come to the LORD for his gift of finest wheat. But when we lay these claims aside the world is free to experience the signs and wonders and the power of the Spirit of God so that they can truly hear the message of Christ. This is what Paul is excited about.

I have finished preaching the Gospel of Christ.
Thus I aspire to proclaim the Gospel
not where Christ has already been named,
so that I do not build on another’s foundation,
but as it is written:

Those who have never been told of him shall see,
and those who have never heard of him shall understand.

And this in turn can motivate us. If we just lay our own claims down before the LORD.

All the ends of the earth have seen
the salvation by our God.