2 Corinthians 1:12 For our boasting is this: the testimony of our conscience that we conducted ourselves in the world in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom but by the grace of God, and more abundantly toward you.
I’m sure we have all experienced awful, painful and unfair things happen to us in life, not even to mention all our own mistakes and failures we made. But the thing is, people often boast in their victories, their hard work to overcome and all the good things they have accomplished and why they can hold their head up high.
Yet Paul used the Greek word καύχησις (kauchesis) which means to boast and hold your head up high in a total different way, because those in Christ do not measure themselves based upon their good deeds that outweigh the bad ones, nor shine the light on their ability to overcome when life hands out challenges and are undeservedly unfair. No, Christians get to boast in all simplicity and godly sincerity because of God's grace in Christ!
Whilst most people would’ve held on to their experience and how they outlasted and outwitted the things that they had to simply overcome, Paul and Timothy said, that they held on to the simplicity and purity of God which made them hold their heads up high.
Another Greek word Paul used to prove their boasting was only in Christ was the word ἁγιότητι (hagioteti) which means: "to think one thing, to have only one thought, not weaving together more than one opinion." That’s why this one opinion got emphasised by the word εἰλικρίνεια (eilikrineia), which means: "pure, clear, without blemish."
So, to have one pure clean conscience no matter what you face or come your way, was solidly based on the simplicity of who believers are because of God's doing in Christ!
Are you single-mindedly relying on the simplicity of what God has done with you in Christ and made you in Him? Are not the cross of Christ and His resurrection the only reason you can always keep your head high?
Paul went further to say that they even boast in afflictions, in times of suffering, in opposition, in rejection, in mockery, in false accusations against them, cause in it all, their conscience remained proudly fixated in God’s grace, and their testimony was simply pure, fixed upon Jesus’ work in them, not on people’s behaviour toward them nor how events turned out.
Each believer in Christ has this privilege be proud because of the simplicity and purity of God towards us in Christ, knowing without a shadow of a doubt that we too get to live from what Christ has accomplished in us, what He is also doing through us, as we live with no other opinion but certainty in Him, no matter what or who comes against us with multiple other opinions, FOR WE BOAST ONLY IN JESUS
Amen.