In Galatians 6:13 Paul spoke of teachers who wanted Gentiles to be circumcised and then they would glory, as Paul said, “in your flesh.” What would a statement like that mean? “They would glory in the flesh.”

Imagine that you had coached your daughter as a little girl in soccer and she became a stellar player. As she played in college, you’d sit up in the stadium as people all around you would pay you compliments and high praise for the skill you had forged in your daughter as you trained her. In a sense you would be glorying in her flesh, her ability. Her excellence of play would be seen as reflecting back on your ability to groom the dormant soccer dexterity.

With so many questing for fame or searching to accomplish some great feat that will be noticed and commended by others, we hardly notice how contrary to the gospel our ways are to God.

In the next verse (Galatians 6:14), Paul says “God forbid that I should glory except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.” What does he mean? Imagine sitting in that same stadium and people all around begin to commend you for your daughter’s more than typical performance and you respond something like this, “When my daughter was ten years old, she fell off a roof and was told by the doctors that she would never walk again. We took her to church one night, had the elders pray for her and within months she was walking. Look at her now. Clearly she is on that field doing well because God healed her, because His mercy toward her failed not.”

See the difference. Paul forbad himself from receiving glory from man. He clearly defined the amazing things that came from his life to be a work of the cross, a work of God’s mercy.

The early disciples said they beheld the glory of God in the Person of Jesus and what they saw was someone full of grace and truth. To glory in the flesh is to see and take credit for what I can do. To glory in God is to give God credit for what He did.

Fame is the competitive spirit of the age seeking to draw attention away from God’s power to my own strength, proving that I am better, stronger, more apt than someone else, and should be recognized for my great efforts.

Glory is to recognize God’s power that made my effort possible and then seeks not the praise of men (fame) but praise from my heavenly Father, “That-a-boy” or “Well done thou good and faithful servant.” If you want to live for God’s glory, live to hear those words, “Well done, daughter. Well done, son.”