But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong. — 2 Corinthians 12:9–10
Boast In God
If I must boast, I will boast of the things that show my weakness. — 2 Corinthians 11:30
I decided to make a personal change this year. For Christmas I decided against flooding my social media pages with the presents I and my family received. If you look at my Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, there are no pictures of our family in matching pajamas merrily opening our bounty of gifts. No one is posing for the camera with an expensive electronic gift or tickets to the magical mouse kingdom in Florida or California. I’m not anti-magical mouse kingdom. I’m anti-boasting about things that don’t really matter. My wife and I try to find the best deals for the least amount of dollars. We don’t have a tree in the back yard that produces twenty-dollar bills.
If you take time to read Second Corinthians chapter eleven, you will find the things that the Apostle Paul decides to boast about. Paul boasts that he’s been in prison more times, been beaten more times, been closer to death from being beaten by his own countrymen and foreign occupiers, shipwrecked, spent a day and night floating in the open sea, faced dangers of every kind, and has been thirsty and hungry not knowing where the food and water would come from. This is the Apostle Paul’s boast list. What does yours look like? Your social media pages will tell everyone what you boast about. Now, think about what message you are sending to other people. Paul knew what message he was sending. Paul’s message: “I’d rather boast about what Christ and his power have been able to do through my weaknesses, than what a great life I’ve had.”
Can you say the same thing?
Are we, as Christians, boasting about the powerful presence of the Holy Spirit of God in our lives, or are we boasting in our posting about how great our lives are with all of the stuff of earth? I’m making a commitment to myself to boast less about my family and how good we have it, and boast more about the evidence of the unseen Creator at work in my life to make me more like him.
Make A Change
What can you change in your boasting posting on social media? Do your social media followers know that you are a Christ follower or do they know more about your vacation to the beach or mountains? If we practice the presence and power of God in our lives, then that is what should consume us. The presence and the power of God should be what flows out of us. The presence and the power of God should be so evident in our lives, that those who know us and follow us on social media will be disappointed when we don’t post and boast about what God is doing in the here and now.
The world is watching. Do we follow Paul and boast about our weaknesses so that the power of Christ is within us, or do we continue to make the world think that Christians have everything, never lack for anything, and never face any kind of trials. The number of Christian pity parties on social media is overwhelming. Second Corinthians chapter eleven isn’t a pity party. It’s Paul talking about how jacked up his life was, so that Christ could be magnified.
What we boast about in our posts will forever tell the story and define the narrative we determined was most important in our lives. The legacy we leave is now archived on the pages of social media. May we pick up where our forefathers left off. Let us continue the legacy of telling the story of Jesus and his Agape love. Make the new year different with one new commitment: Commit to boasting in your posting about how the power of Jesus Christ is evident in your life because of how he now works through your weaknesses.
Will you join me?
This devotion originally appeared on Devotable written by David Shelton
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