FRIDAY 13th
Galatians 6
NIV (v14) – ‘May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’
ESV (v14) – ‘But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.’
We come to the last but one of our devotions from Galatians, I trust you have been blessed in some way, speaking for myself I have really enjoyed looking through this book, it is possibly a book which I know so many selective verses from, but not previously spend so much time reading and studying and I personally feel the better spiritually for it. As I have immersed myself into it, the Holy Spirit has ministered to me. I have commenced reading a whole commentary on it, and already purchased another to be ready to read afterwards.
Paul has dealt with the issue he commenced with that the believers here had began to turn away from the gospel he had delivered to them toward another gospel, but in Pauls own words again ‘not that there is another’. (Galatians 1:6)
It was a very clear warning to the Galatian believers not to get caught out, not to fall into a trap, not to be deceived, but instead to return to the message of the Cross, which is that mankind is not saved by the law or works, but by grace through faith which is a gift of God. (Ephesians 2:8) Paul does not silence good works, rather he sees good works as an outworking of salvation not the requirement for salvation. Faith leads to good works, not good works to faith.
And after his discourse with them he ends by declaring where he stands, ‘Far be it from me to boast except in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ . . .’ He does not boast about how good he had been at keeping the law because he knew that the keeping of the law could never save him, he boasted in the Cross, for this is the power of God unto salvation. (1 Corinthians 1:18)
Even after we have come to faith we must never boast in anything but the Cross, we can so easily and quickly boast in who we are, what we are, even in what we are doing, although we are called to do good works, we are not called to boast or brag about what we are doing, we should always point to Jesus and the Cross and to his glory. In fact Jesus said himself that when we do good works (which God himself as foreordained for us to do) it is not to point to ourselves, look at me, look at what I have done, instead it is so that men may see our good works and glorify God in heaven. ‘In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.’ (Matthew 5:16)
May we close our devotion by glorifying God for who he is and for what he has done, may we give him thanks from grateful hearts that he chose to send his eternal son into the world to redeem us, may we give thanks to the Lord Jesus Christ for his willing obedience to come and go to the Cross, the place where we are all made aware of our sinfulness and his holiness, the place where his power was unleashed to save and to grant eternal life to all who by faith would believe. Thank you for the Cross, Lord, God forbid than any one of us should boast, save in the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is there and there alone that we die to the world, die to the flesh, die to self and walk in newness of life, walking and being led by the Spirit of God. Jesus keep me near the Cross.