“Where then is boasting? It is excluded.” (Romans 3:27)

A better word could not be said regarding true religion. There is NO room for personal boasting in genuine Christianity.  

Most of the religions of the world provide you something to impress others with regarding your personal  religous practices: you get to share how you prayed so many prayers, or fasted until you were emaciated, or lit so many candles, gave so much money, or whatever. It gives you something to be proud about regarding your religious efforts.

But Christianity offers no such opportunity for boasting. It tells us that we are saved, not on the basis of our efforts, but by Christ’s death on the cross. It is after explaining that in Romans 3 that verse 27 states that boasting is excluded.

Thus boasting SHOULD indeed be conspicuously absent from the company of those of us who know Jesus as their Savior.  This is why we are to be so merciful and accepting of others: we ourselves are only saved by God’s mercy, not our own good deeds. This is why there is no room for being “holier than thou” in the church. We ourselves were not saved because we were so “holy”, but only after we first admitted that we were sinners, and needed a Savior, who delivered us quite apart from our works.

We need to make sure that we do not allow any kind of “spiritual pride” (actually an oxymoron; there is no such thing as “spiritual” pride!) to creep into our walk with the Lord — regarding our proficiency in the spiritual disciplines, or the use of our spiritual gifts, or any other area of the Christian life. The only allowable “boast” any of us can make, is of the cross of Jesus, by which we were saved, entirely apart from our own merit (Galatians 6:14).

There is NO place for personal boasting in Christianity. None.  Romans 3:27 makes that very clear: “Where then is boasting? It is excluded”!