No room for bragging

But God forbid that I should boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. - Galatians 6:14

‘Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,

Save in the death of Christ my God!

All the vain things that charm me most,

I sacrifice them to His blood'

This words are found in the hymn 'When I Survery the Wondrous Cross.' They wonderfully express the thoughts in Galatians 6.14. The song begins with a reminder of what brings about this kind of humility. 

'When I survey the wondrous cross

On which the Prince of glory died,

My richest gain I count but loss,

And pour contempt on all my pride.'

Isaac Watts wrote this hymn as a communion hymn. The purpose of the hymn is to remind us of the meaning of the cross and how little all our best efforts are in the light of the cross. He wrote a verse he later omitted. 

His dying crimson, like a robe,

Spreads o'er his body on the tree;

Then am I dead to all the globe,

And all the globe is dead to me.

I think the last lines of this stanza really express what Paul is saying in the verse above. I have nothing to brag about. In view of the cross all my works are nothing. Supposedly Watts dropped this verse because he was afraid it sounded like boasting. I can see his point, I suppose, but I see that as my goal. When I look at the cross I should indeed be dead to the world, and the world's appeal should be dead to me. That is, after all, how the verse ends. 'The world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.' The world only has a draw to me when I get my eyes off the cross. in the shadow of the cross the world is dead. 

So what is my response? Watts nails it 

'Were the whole realm of nature mine,

That were an offering far too small,

Love so amazing, so divine,

Demands my soul, my life, my all.'