Looking up to believers in our lives isn’t always a bad thing, but it can be. Last week we looked at how the strengths of other believers are a blessing and encouragement to us. However, our sinful hearts can take the blessing of having mature believers in our lives and make it about us, stirring us toward sin instead of Christ.
Our joy-killing pride
Although not exhaustive, let’s look at 3 ways our pride can cause us to sin when we look at the spiritual lives of our brothers and sisters.
Jealousy
I gave you milk to drink, not solid food; for you were not yet able to receive it. Indeed, even now you are not yet able, for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men? For when one says, “I am of Paul,” and another, “I am of Apollos,” are you not mere men? (1 Corinthians 3:2-4)
In the early church, they had a problem with worshiping celebrities. If you were someone who had come to Christ through Paul’s teachings, you had a certain status symbol. Or perhaps you weren’t so mainstream and had been taught by Apollos. Regardless, people were using their spiritual journey to either elevate themselves over one another, or they were looking on with jealousy because they didn’t come to Christ through a big name.
Often, we are no different when we look at the lives of others. We see their spiritual gifts, testimony, pastor, or anything else and feel envy. We wish we had things like that in our own lives. Meanwhile, we have an unexciting spiritual gift (if we have one at all), limited Bible knowledge, and a boring testimony. At least, that’s what we tell ourselves.
When we compare ourselves like that, we must begin with the assumption that there is a prescribed Christian life. We assume that everyone should read a certain number of books, pray a certain way, keep a journal, have a prison ministry, teach classes, and any other thing we see others do that aren’t directly called for in the Bible. We blur the lines between what the general signs of a mature believer, and how a specific believer lives out those signs.
Bitterness
Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled (Hebrews 12:12-15)
“All that Bible reading is nice, but I bet he doesn’t pay enough attention to his family.”
“She thinks she’s so much better than everyone with that holier-than-thou attitude.”
“He must not be following Christ if his kid is that messed up.”
Bitterness is a slow poison. Often we don’t even realize it has begun festering in our hearts. We draw on it to comfort ourselves by tearing down others, letting our jealousy and pride blind us from our own wickedness.
In the end, bitterness stunts our spiritual growth. We become so preoccupied with why others aren’t nearly as godly as they portray that we fail to see how far our own walk with Christ has fallen. What often begins as a desire to have someone else’s spiritual strengths becomes corrupted into a celebration of their weakness.
Often, our bitterness isn’t content to rest. Eventually we will want others to know how horrible a person is, slandering their name to feel better about ourselves. Believers will turn against one another as we continue giving in to temptation, refusing to submit to Christ in humility and brokenness. Without realizing it, our bitterness is little more than our attempts to actively tear down the same people Christ has redeemed for our own pleasure.
Despair
But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. (1 Timothy 6:6-8)
Trust in the Lord with all your heart
And do not lean on your own understanding.
In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He will make your paths straight. (Proverbs 3:5-6)
When stripped to its roots, the heart of despair is a lack of trust and contentment. It is a feeling of overwhelming hopelessness because we see something we need, don’t have, and may never obtain. Whether it’s despair at finding a job, recovering from illness, or getting out of a sinful pattern, despair and faith are in a constant state of push-and-pull as one tries to crowd out the other.
When we look at the strengths and successes of others, we may feel as though we’ll never reach that point. Someone else may be so deep in their relationship with Christ while we count it a victory to read our “verse of the day” every day for a week. We have no idea how we’ll get from where we are to where we want to be.
Although being unable to see our path toward maturity isn’t sinful, our reaction to it often is. Rather than trusting that God will grow us in His time and in His way, we are tempted to give up. We don’t want to live with the constant feeling of guilt and frustration, especially in a culture where our greatest goal in life is to be happy and accept ourselves. We don’t know how God will get us where we want to be, and without faith in Him we will rarely find ourselves willing to wait around and find out.
Our God-planned steps
The mind of man plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps. (Proverbs 16:9)
When we look at others who are living the Christian life we want, we often forget that they didn’t come out of the womb singing praises and reading their Bibles daily. Every mature believer starts in the same place, as a newly-redeemed child of God with whole lifetime to devote to pursuing their savior. Yet while we all start in the same place, our Heavenly Father takes us through wildly different journeys to get us where He wants us to be.
For some people, living in a Christian home and going to Bible college is part of God’s plan. For others, being saved at 45 after a lifetime of substance abuse and bad parenting is how God wants to glorify Himself in that person’s life. Each of our journeys toward maturity in Christ will be different, yet each will ultimately be used to show how glorious Christ truly is.
What matters most is that we have faith that God knows what He’s doing and the humility to let Him do it. He can bring us to maturity while we kick and scream, or He can gently guide us there because we want to honor Him in all we do. Each of those journeys will be filled with joy and pain, and both will always result in God’s ultimate glory.
A Christ-honoring outlook
Only let each person lead the life that the Lord has assigned to him, and to which God has called him. This is my rule in all the churches. (1 Corinthians 7:17)
We know God wants all His children to continue growing up, rejecting the world and turning to Christ. Nothing can stop our sovereign God’s plans, either for the world or for each individual. God will use each of our lives to touch others around us, encouraging and blessing them just as others do the same to us.
From creation, God designed us to live in community. Throughout the Bible and church history we see that no one was made to be a lone wolf, able to exist perfectly on their own. God gives each of us certain strengths to build up others, yet He also leaves us with many weaknesses so that we can likewise be built up.
Absoltely, there are certain things all Christians need to strive for. Time in God’s word, prayer, faith, training their children well, sharing Christ with the lost, and loving others are a small list of things we’re called to do. Yet how we do those things will vary greatly between each of us. Not only that, but how easy they come to us will also differ.
In the end, our strengths and weaknesses aren’t meant to make us feel good or bad about ourselves. Everything we do well is a gift from God to glorify Him and serve others. The areas we struggle with are also God’s way of glorifying Himself, both through showing His greatness in helping us while also demonstrating His goodness in the strength of those who can bless us.
Ultimately, our spiritual walk with Christ isn’t a matter of our own success, but God’s glory. As we compare ourselves to others, it must never be from a position of seeing who is the better Christian. Instead, it should always be our way of looking upwards and seeing God’s goodness as He blesses others, His greatness as he continues our own maturity, and His majesty as He works all of these things together for His ultimate good.
And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)
