Articles
I’m Better Than You Are!
Do you ever get the feeling that you might be a little better than other people? We like to see
ourselves as smarter, stronger, or even better looking than others. It is easy to look around and
find people in circumstances who are worse off than we are. We can always find people who
have made worse choices than we have. People who are sinning more openly and anything else
we want to criticize. We compare ourselves to those other people to make ourselves feel better.
We should not do this, but we often do it anyway. The Bible warns us of the dangers of this type
of attitude. Comparing ourselves to others can puff up our ego, give us an excuse to overlook our
own faults, and ignore areas we need to be working on in our own lives.
“Brothers and sisters, if someone is caught in a sin, you who live by the Spirit should restore
that person gently. But watch yourselves, or you also may be tempted. Carry each other’s
burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. If anyone thinks they are something
when they are not, they deceive themselves. Each one should test their own actions. Then they
can take pride in themselves alone, without comparing themselves to someone else, for each one
should carry their own load” (Galatians 6:1-5).
When we are looking at our own life and judging our own actions and not comparing them
to others, we will be doing what God wants. The question is not “Am I doing better than
someone else?” or even “Are others doing better than me?” The real question we need to be
asking ourselves is “Am I doing the best job that I can do?” When we look inward and compare
the way we are living to what the Bible says, that is when we find out the truth about ourselves
and can take pride in what God is making us into. Each of us have our strengths and weaknesses,
and it is only when we test ourselves according to what the Bible says, that we will be pleasing to
God.
~Brad Tolbert
