23 This is what the Lord says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches,
Dear heavenly Father, your Word anticipates everywhere I’m tempted to turn, when you don’t seem to be enough, to fill the longings of my heart and the pain in my story. I wish “smarts, strength, and stuff” were the only three broken cisterns to which I default, when I look beyond your generous provision for me in Jesus.
O for the Day when I’ll no longer complain and compare, murmur and measure, sin or even be tempted to sin. My theology is a resounding Jesus + nothing is everything, but sometimes my heart isn’t as convinced as my head.
24 but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me,
Father, thank you for anticipating my foolishness, and for constantly wooing and winning my heart back to gospel sanity—back to yourself. You are more prone to recapture my heart than I am prone to wander away; more prone to forgive than I am to sin; more committed to completing your work in me than I am to growing up in Jesus. Salvation is of the Lord—all of it!
Indeed, what is my boast? That you know me, Father, and therefore, I know you. I know you only because you initiated and secured me in an intimate relationship with yourself. I love you because you first loved me, and gave Jesus for me. It’s always you, Father, first and you last.
that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the Lord.
Your kindness, justice, and righteousness were (are) most clearly revealed on earth in the gospel. Through the gift of Jesus, you lavished immeasurable kindness on us; you satisfied every demand of justice; and you have given us the gift of his perfect righteousness—and you did all of this with great joy and delight. For so great a salvation and so great a Savior, I praise, bless, and adore you, Father. So very Amen I pray, in Jesus strong and loving name.
