The Comparison Trap pt 2

The effects of comparison are profound.
1. It disturbs our serenity, because we don’t feel at peace with ourselves or with God.
2. It destroys our sincerity because we cannot love our Christian sisters as the Lord intended.
3. It distracts us from service because we feel inadequate.
4. We become focused on what others are doing and not on what the Lord wants us to be doing.

We cannot envy and obey at the same time. Envy always eats up time and energy that should be spent on the good works God has prepared for us. When we envy others, we miss out on God’s grace to bear fruit today. The bible tells us very simply to: “Rid yourselves of all.....envy” 1 Peter 2:1

Jealousy creates hurt.......
Jealousy is negative thoughts and feelings of insecurity, fear and anxiety. It is a condition of the heart where we think God has kept the best for someone else, and He meanly and unreasonably withholds good gifts from us. It’s often said that jealous people, if not helped, are drawn towards each other and thrive on belittling or undermining people whom they consider to be gifted or “better” or need to be brought down a notch or two. Regardless of what jealous people may do or say about someone, they cannot stop the plans God has for that particular individual. Jealousy and envy hurt our relationship with God and people around us including our church family.
God is our security and our hope. He is able to help us overcome feelings of envy and jealousy if we let Him.

“The heart of sinful comparison is idolatry. Idolatry is worshipping created things rather than God, and it occurs when we trust in other things to make us truly satisfied, truly secure. So either we look enviously at others and believe that if we had more of what they have, then we’d be really happy; or we have a false and very vulnerable sense of satisfaction from feeling in a better position to others. Either way, our hope is in created things or earthly circumstances and not in the Lord. We are not looking to the gospel of Jesus Christ to satisfy us, but to our idols. Underlying many potential ‘smaller’ idols is the big idol of self. When we look back at the garden of Eden, we see that the serpent tempted Eve to be like God and since then, we have all been trying to glorify ourselves, rather than Him. We want to be the centre of attention – the ones who are worshipped. So at the heart of the sin of comparison lies a desire for glorification of self. And even when we pity ourselves because we aren’t as gifted as others, we display a false humility that really just serves to draw attention to ourselves.”

Is there such a thing as “healthy comparison?” Read more to find out.......