[J-CURVE: Union with Christ] 4. Marketing the Self

This episode continues our series on the J-Curve, looking closer at what we tend to do instead of the J-Curve: marketing ourselves and trying to climb the failure-boasting chart. "The word "boast" the way Paul uses it in Philippians 3 is bigger than our English word. It also includes glory and rejoicing. So, when your favorite sports team wins, you glory in that sports team. The concept gets right at the heart of how our flesh operates." "When I was silent in that meeting, it put to death something evil in me – my boasting self. I felt the pain of that." "A lot of people are quiet – they don't boast – but Paul is not so much talking about what you say, but about the boasting self. If you are critical, that's a form of boasting. You're bringing someone down. Gossip is the boasting self. You're sharing information about someone else that quietly lifts you up. So many of our sins rotate around this desire to move up the failure-boasting chart!"