Word of the week: Boastful

Sorry for the delay on getting this one out. Some family is
in town and was without internet or a laptop this weekend. Hope you are good
and practiced on not being envious and jealous then since we all got a few
extra days :).

Before I start thank you all so much with your emails, phone
calls, comments, and texts about these blogs. Honestly I didn’t think people
were really going to read them and it would be more of an accountability for
myself since I was making it a public study, but I have been blown away. Your
stories of victories and confessions of struggling through but wanting to work
to really live a life of love and really walk it out have been so inspiring to
me.  So keep them coming, because they
keep me going sometimes when I get down!

Word of the Week: Boastful Love is not…. Boastful.
1 Corinthians 13:4

Boastful: not a word people use that often, but most people
know what it means. I would give you the dictionary.com version of boastful,
but it is pretty simple…it means to brag.

“Man, I am so insanely good at Catch Phrase. I could own you
all at it”

“I don’t mean to brag, but I had a perfect game”

Many would agree, bragging is wrong, but the real question
is, why is it wrong? Or in essence, when is it wrong?

When we boast, we are calling others to look at what we have
accomplished. We are drawing attention to ourselves. We are saying that what we
have done is note worthy enough for you to pay attention. Me, me, me, me, me,
I, I, I, I, I, I. LOOK AT ME! Anything good that happens is from the Lord
anyway, so it isn’t even me that can take the credit!

When we are boasting about ourselves our heart beat behind
even doing something good is not healthy. If we are only doing something to get
the attention/praise/pat on the back/congratulations…if we are living for the
validation and affirmation then we are doing things in vain. No matter how much
we work at something people will fail us, they will never fully validate us. If
we are going to do something good, it should be out of love and the good of
others, not for ourselves.

When we boast about ourselves, we are putting ourselves
above others and above God. As I mentioned a few weeks ago God calls us to put
Jesus first, than others, than ourselves. If we look through the new testament,
Paul actually does boast. However, he refuses to boast about himself, but
instead boasts about what God is doing/has done, and about how others have been
seeking and following the Lord. 1 and 2 Corinthians have the word boast in it
many times, but it is never to boast about himself.

Are we called to love ourselves? Yes. But that does not mean
we are called to boast about ourselves. We can love ourselves without the heart
beat of trying to make it all about us instead of all about the Lord and
others.

 “Therefore,
as it is written: “Let the one
who boasts boast in
the Lord.” – 1 Corinthians 1:31, 2 Corinthians 10:17

 God created us to be in relationship. God created us to
desire attention. However, the attention that we seek and crave should be from
the Lord.

This week the challenge that I pose and am taking on myself
is to check my motivation behind the things that I do. I want to do it for the
good of others and for God, not for myself so that I may boast.