PROPER BRAGGING -- Devotional for August 7, from "Good Seeds"

Your commands give me an edge on my enemies, for they never become obsolete. I’ve even become smarter than my teachers, ever since I’ve pondered and absorbed Your counsel. I’ve becomes wiser than the wise old sages, simply by doing what You tell me.

No one likes a bragger. I mean, who can empty a room faster than the guy totally full of himself?! Someone put it this way: “When you have pride, you soon will slide!” – which almost sounds like how Solomon put it: “Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall” (Prov.16:18). But there is another kind of pride, another sort of boasting, another breed of bragger, that not only meets with God’s approval, but is His standard of speech and conversation for the believer. It is the language of praise, for praise is no more or less than bragging on God! Hear the Sweet Psalmist of Israel: “I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth, for my soul shall make its BOAST in the Lord” (Psalm 34:1). Turn over a few pages in heaven’s hymnbook to hear the same from other’s lips: “In God we boast all the day long, and praise His name forever” (Psalm 44:8). But the clearest and best recommendation for boasting comes from the mouth of God Himself: “Let not a wise man boast of his wisdom, the mighty man of his strength, or the rich man of his wealth; rather, let him who boasts boast of this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who exercises lovingkindness, justice, and righteousness on the earth” (Jeremiah 9:23-24). In I Corinthians 1:20-30, Paul speaks of these same boastful worldlings: the wise, the mighty, and the noble. But then he names a fourth group, those who will someday put the proud boasters in their place: “God has chosen the foolish, the weak, and the lowly ones of the world to put to shame those who are strong by worldly standards” (verse 27-28). Someday the ones who have nothing within them to boast about – except the Lord! – will nullify all other proud boasters! So Paul concludes, and so must we: “Let him that would glory glory in the Lord” (verse 31). With this as background, we can now defend that audacious and spirited youngster of Psalm 119, and join him, too, as he brags on God, or more specifically, on God’s Word. When it is eaten like a bear eats honey, and absorbed like fish gills absorbs oxygen, and obeyed like a slave obeys his master, even the least experienced believer who trusts in Jesus can and will stand head and shoulders over the strongest enemy, the smartest intellectual, and the wisest old wise man in the land. This was the way it was 3000 years ago; this is the way it is today, and will be forever. Aren’t you glad God’s Word never gets old, and will never be replaced! Don’t you feel like bragging, too?!