Our boast can only ever be in the Lord!

(1Corinthians 1:31)  "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord."

Considering the way my mind works and how it turns over concerning the importance of making it to heaven, I have had an “epiphany”, but not as the deceiver would like us to believe and this example of his cunning; celebration around Christmas is a misguided affair where all get involved, from the Christian to the heathen. Something very wrong with that picture and it took the mind of a child to expose my mistake. Not that I am calling out Christmas per-say but it is a very good example to help highlight this “epiphany”- my revelation that I have received from God the Holy Spirit, the One who guide us into all truth. How have  I arrived at such a conclusion, let me unpack it for you, not that I am compelled too in that sense, but it may help the skeptic understand the concept behind receiving revelation. A simple thought springs to mind, after prayer and constant deliberation around God and His eternal plan. Think on this thought like a bee buzzing around one’s head, not enough to send someone into panic as the stinger of the bee only a distant threat, but enough of a concern to always be aware of its presence. I would wake up thinking on a particular thought and then go to bed wrestling for an answer. A Solution then springs to mind, but after some thoughts, many of them are disregarded as man-centered (a nice idea but just another lure), but when God places a thought into ones rational, you know because you know. So when one begins to unpack it, one finds that it is full of nourishment and very good for the soul. And it can always be backed by scripture.

Like I said I needed the mind of a child to see the answer. Only once I had returned to my first love was I made aware of the significance of a child’s mind. God has in His grace taken me back to the beginning and shown me the simplicity in salvation, lose your way and it becomes complicated. You could say that this verse has become very real to me of late; “At that time Jesus declared, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;”” (Matthew 11:25) 

Let me by the grace of God unpack this life changing thought, and I am willing to go on the record with the conclusions I will now arrive at. It saddens me that we all have believed what I am now about to share somewhere along our journey, but we lose our way! Satan the mastermind behind what I will now reveal, but before we give Him too much credit, know this, it was our great Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ that defeated Him on Calvary’s Hill. Once and for all He has been silence by the blood of the Lamb. These are the facts behind recorded scripture, words penned by men inspired by God the Holy Spirit. The truth of it is that our great Saviour defeated every principality and power that opposed His will and the will of His great Father our great God. He cried, “It is finished!” And yet we still struggle with our walks and often lose our way, why? Because our adversary goes around like a roaring lion seeking to devour those weak in the faith, and not only the weak but he uses a different tactic for the schooled, or more mature. How does he do it? It will always be through some form of deception (the practice of deliberately making somebody believe things that are not true), always! You see it is the truth that sets us free; “Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”” (John 14:6): - So then Satan’s objective is to keep us from the truth, which is the only way that will lead us home. Now with that in mind let’s also remember the enemy we have within. The Apostle John says it like this; “For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” (1John 2:16-17)

What then is the will of the Father? It is very simple, do not complicate it, the answer is to remember HIS SON! What is the will of Satan, to get you to forget, or divert our attention from the truth of His accomplishments? And babes, young believers and more mature men in Christ have been and are still targeted by the devil’s flaming arrows.

The boisterous babe is confident in their God’s ability to look out for them and eventually becomes nonchalant with their carefulness in what they do with their lives in general. They begin to take things for granted. They begin to believe they are bullet proof to sin, but before long they are caught in one of Satan’s traps. To put it plainly they take their eyes off the Lord Jesus!

The young men overcome the evil one, but only when their eyes are fixed on the Lord Jesus and not on their developing muscles and their athletic abilities. They are captivated by Christ and nothing lures them from Him.

The fathers of the faith have remembered Him, I could begin to mention many names of those who we could refer to as our fathers in the faith, and it would begin with Abraham, and end with someone more current like Charles Spurgeon, but all would say the same thing, look to Jesus and live.

Many reformed theologians have a tendency to highlight the importance of living holy lives, but I say if we get the order wrong it may just as well be a pile of straw fit for the fire, we must get the order right, which is look to Jesus first, do not look to be once again enslaved with the bondage of the law, the does and don’ts we as Christians like to conjure up. For if this becomes our unbalanced rational, we play right into the hand of the devil. How one may ask? We do exactly what the Galatian church looked to do, they got circumcised, why? They look for proof by living by the law and this is what Paul has to say about this type of reasoning; "I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed. For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. For I would have you know, brothers, that the gospel that was preached by me is not man's gospel. For I did not receive it from any man, nor was I taught it, but I received it through a revelation of Jesus Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-11)  

The importance of this topic and its understanding it needs a book to expound it correctly. I hope I have by the grace of God done it some justice.

Let me conclude by simply spelling it out; everything in our lives from start to finish must always revolve around the Lord Jesus, yes everything! If not we soon play into the hands of Satan. We must however get the order right, which is not the putting off and then the putting on which I hear many speak about. They say we must put off sin and then put on Christ, WRONG! Satan looks to get us to reason like this by deceiving us into believing this lie. We must first put on Christ and then we will put off sin, nothing else will do. Look to Jesus and we will live. I am tired of all the mixed messages that send us down a path of destruction. It is all about the Lord Jesus, it has only ever been about Him, and it will only ever be about Him. Of Course the Godhead is glorified when He is given His rightful place, praise His holy name! No wonder the Apostle Paul uses these strong words; “but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that, as it is written, "Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord." (1Corinthians 1:23-31)

For this reason he makes this statement which must also be the banner for our lives as we carry it with us in every area of our lives as nothing else will do, God our heavenly Father will accept nothing less; “For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1Corinthians 2:2)

The starting place for all if we have somehow lost our way would be to have the mind of a child. Placing our trust in him like a little child would place his trust in his father.

Signing off

Tyrone