The love does not boast (continued)

When we testify, we should not brag about what we have done in the past, no matter what our experiences, or brag about what we are today, or even our supernatural experiences with God : "... having discernment and knowing myself" (Jeremiah 9:23). If we want to boast, "glorify us" (that is, find our glory in the fact) to know the Lord.

We speak of Christ, and we hide ourselves fully in him. We are talking about what he has done, and it is with shame that we talk about our past (in the sense that this past is not a pride). We pride ourselves instead on what Christ did. The psalmist said : "I praise God for his word, I praise the Lord for his word" (Psalms 56:11). The apostle Paul had a similar language.

When we find ourselves in front of an unbeliever, we do not preach ourselves, it is Jesus Christ whom we preach ! As the apostles said : "We do not preach ourselves : it is Jesus Christ the Lord whom we preach, and we say to you your servants because of Jesus. Indeed, the God who commanded the light to shine out of the darkness also shone his light in our hearts to make the knowledge of the glory of God shine forth in the person of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:5-6). You see, the apostles preached by taking the "form" of servants. They boasted of nothing, and it was precisely because they came without peculiarities, without particular human outbursts, that their word was powerful and that people could see Christ in them. If they had boasted of themselves, they would have been so visible that Christ would have disappeared, rendering their testimony ineffective. We must trust the Word. We must believe that it is sufficient and that we do not need to add anything to our testimony. It is the Word that saves, not our testimony, which is but one, among many illustrations of the truth.

Jeremy Sourdril