Yep, you can write many words and parse many verses and explain all you want to....it comes down to your words here, "WE MUST REMAIN YOKED". Man, the glory stealer, insisting on adding himself to our Lord's work on the cross and the Spirit's work in our lives.
Guess what....you have just given yourself a reason to BOAST. God's GIFT has NO STRINGS, and man can take no credit. Boasting is excluded by the LAW OF FAITH. :nono:
The Jews had the ceremonial works to boast in.
Galatians 6:13 Not even those who are circumcised keep the law, yet they want you to be circumcised that they may boast about your circumcision in the flesh.
Philippians 3:3 For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh--
Did you read that? That is about not boasting in making ourselves clean with things such as CIRCUMCISION.
Paul says we can boast in obeying.
Paul says he wants us to boast in each other.
For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand. And I hope that, as you have understood us in part, you will come to understand fully
that you can boast of us just as we will boast of you in the day of the Lord Jesus. See 2 Corinthians 1:13,14.
Paul shows us we can boast in ourselves.
2 Corinthians 1:12
Now this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, with integrity and godly sincerity. We have done so, relying not on worldly wisdom but on God's grace.
2 Corinthians 7:14
I had boasted to him about you, and you have not embarrassed me. But just as everything we said to you was true,
so our boasting about you to Titus has proved to be true as well.
1 Thessalonians 2:10
You are witnesses, and so is God,
of how holy, righteous and blameless we were among you who believed.
2 Corinthians 12:6
Even if I should choose to boast, I would not be a fool, because I would be speaking the truth.
Acts 23:1
Paul looked straight at the Sanhedrin and said, "My brothers, I
have fulfilled my duty to God in all good conscience to this day."
1 Corinthians 9:15 But I have not used any of these rights. And I am not writing this in the hope that you will do such things for me, for
I would rather die than allow anyone to deprive me of this boast.