Stay In Your Lane
Personally, The Lord has shown me these past weeks how in our Christian walk it is VITAL to be worried about ourselves and our own salvation first. Now the Lord does not mean this so that we can adopt an attitude of selfishness and not care for our fellow brothers and sisters but, He expects us to not get into minds of comparison or control. Let's look at some Scripture.
“Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. For each is responsible for our own conduct.” – Galatians 6:4-5
I remember coming across this Scripture and it truly smacked me in my face. I was struggling with comparison, looking at my fellow Sistees’ lives, conjecturing that their lives were going great, but feeling that mine, The Lord, was just ripping apart. The Lord, through His Holy Spirit, convicted me by showing me how avoidant I have been and how I was more focused on what He was doing in others’ lives that I could not tell what He was doing in mine. He knew that comparison was taking me away from seeing His Will in my life and worshiping Him for it.
Let me ask you: Have you ever felt the need to compare yourself to your friends? Have you ever coveted their blessings under the guise of “ The Lord has no favorites so what He does for one, He can do for another”? Have you ever felt disappointed because you felt that everyone around you was getting blessed but you weren’t? Have you ever felt like your life was up in shambles while the people around you were experiencing sunshine and rainbows? Yup, this one's for you.
Matthew 7:13-14 reads
“You can enter God’s Kingdom only through the narrow gate. The highway to hell is broad, and its gate is wide for the many who choose that way. But the gateway to life is very narrow and the road is difficult, and only a few ever find it.”
Do this for me: Imagine a very narrow road, like this small | | . How many people do you think you can fit in there? This is not spades, so no possibles, I mean just a perfect fit. One right..
A wise woman once pointed that out for me, and as I advance in my walk I see why that road is so narrow. Not only will everyone not make it, but you will have to make it there yourself. See the Bible tells us to work out our OWN salvation with fear and trembling (Phillipians 2:12). We have to study to show ourselves approved to even make it on that narrow road (2 Timothy 2:15). The Lord requires our all when we become believers; that is why we are called to take up our cross, love Him with our all, and allow Christ to live through us (Matthew 16:24-25, Matthew 22:37-38, Romans 14:8, Galatians 2:20). When we give our all to God, there will be nothing left to give to comparing ourselves to others. If all of our time goes to The Lord and what He has called us to do, we will have no time to look elsewhere. Let's go back to the narrow passageway
| | , do you think you’ll have room to turn your head freely left and right? I do not think so.
Another problem in comparison is misinterpreting Romans 2:11 that reads “For God does not show favoritism”. Just reading this one verse, you’d think “Bet. He has no favorites so how He blessed someone else He can bless me”, which is not entirely true. Let's look at what Paul says in the following verses 12-13:
“When the Gentiles sin, they will be destroyed, even though they never had God’s written law. And the Jews, who do have God’s law, will be judged by that law when they fail to obey it. For merely listening to the law doesn’t make us right with God. It is obeying the law that makes us right in his sight.”
The Lord is a fair judge. His impartiality boils down to Him judging us all with the same standard regardless of who we are and our background. This is because He died for us all so we all could have the equal opportunity to know Him.
“For the love of Christ compels us, because we judge thus: that if One died for all, then all died; and He died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again.” – 2 Corinthians 5:14-15
If we shift our perspective to no longer living for ourselves, but for Him who died for us and defeated death, we will receive the job well done that does not come from comparing ourselves with others.
Closing with the last part Galatians 6:5 “For each person is responsible for their own conduct.” I do not know about you but at times, I have gotten so zealous, desiring for those around me to get saved and worrying about their walks, I lost focus of my own. Let's start at verse 1 of Galatians and work our way to 5.
“ 1 Dear brothers and sisters, if another believer is overcome by some sin, you who are godly should gently and humbly help that person back onto the right path. And be careful not to fall into the same temptation yourself. 2 Share each other’s burdens, and in this way obey the law of Christ. 3 If you think you are too important to help someone, you are only fooling yourself. You are not that important. 4 Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. 5 For we are each responsible for our own conduct.”
Did you catch it? The Lord does not want us to adopt the mindset of “that's not my business” but He also does not want us to try to control or micromanage someone else's. We all are responsible for ourselves, and yes we are called to help others and assist them to Christ, but we should also be advancing in our own walk. Remember what I pointed out above, if you give your all to Christ, you have nothing left to supervise someone else’s walk. That's why Paul tells us:
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase. So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters, but God who gives the increase. Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.” – 1 Corinthians 3:6-8
It is so easy to shift focus when our lives are in shambles. It may seem fitting to look at others’ lives and assume the grass is greener and to desire their grass. But I encourage you to instead keep “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)
Prayer:
Lord, I thank You for the grace and mercy that You give me each and every day. I thank You for granting me grace when I needed it most and for Your Holy Spirit for leading me back to the path of righteousness. I ask for Your forgiveness for trying to compare myself to others. I repent for losing focus and overlooking the many blessings and Your predestined plan for my life. I ask that You will give me a heart of flesh to replace my heart of stone and renew my mind to think according to Your Kingdom and not the things of this world. Help me to make the thoughts of comparison captive and obedient to Christ and grant me the discernment to recognize the distractions in my life. I thank You and worship the name that is above all names for all that You do.
In Jesus name,
Amen