The Lord is faithful and, as we yield ourselves to Him, He uses us to accomplish things that we often times never dreamed we could do. We experience great spiritual victories, like leading a person to Christ; preaching a great message with many people responding to the call; starting a church in an area that had no church, etc. Those victories are sweet, and we cherish them.
Last week we had an amazing children’s ministry at the Italian Assemblies of God church in Napoli, where many lives were touched with the gospel. Dozens of children gave their hearts to Jesus, many for the first time. We experienced the joy of seeing children playing, smiling, laughing, learning, and praying at the altar for a closer relationship with Jesus. It was a difficult event which entailed much preparation time, coordination between groups of people, and – of course – much prayer. We had to work through cultural and language differences, physical fatigue and spiritual battles. But overall it was an awesome time and we are glad to have had the opportunity to be used by God in this way. We were God’s hands touching the precious lives of these young souls.
But after these tremendous victories, we cannot sit back and “rest on our laurels,” saying “look what we did!” Jeremiah 9:23-24 tells us “This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight.”
Our boast is not in ourselves, but rather in our mighty God, who is loving, just, forgiving, and merciful. He gives us these victories and so He should get all of the glory. His love never fails, His justice never discriminates, He always forgives, and His mercy endures forever.
It is important that we do not boast in ourselves about our victories, but rather we should boast about this wonderful relationship we have with God almighty: that He knows us, loves us and has used us to be examples of His love and goodness.
So, when we experience these wonderful spiritual victories, let’s not let them go to our heads. Rather, let’s remember what Paul reminded us of in 1st Corinthians 1:31 - "Let him who boasts boast in the Lord."