Scrap That - 4 - Compairing

So we have reached the final week of our Scrap That series. So far we have looked at ditching excuses, complaining and living in fear.

For this final week we are going to go out with a bang, and will be ditching something that we all do without really noticing it, comparing ourselves with other people.

To start us thinking about comparisons we are going to play a game. Around the room there are ten sets of pictures, each with at least three differences between them.

You have 10 minutes to find as many differences as you can and write them down on your piece of paper.

As humans we are good at noticing differences, we are great at using our senses to make decisions, and understand the world around us. Making comparisons can be useful throughout our lives, there is no question about that.

But we need to be careful. If we try and find differences where they don’t exist, or compare things which are not comparable we can find end up confusing ourselves with the wrong answers.

By the way how many of you found the differences for number 10, did you find them all? Well they were actually the same.

Looking at differences between pictures is one thing, but what we do every day is another. Just think about all of the different things that we judge ourselves against every day.

Can you think of any examples?

So as we have seen there are a lot of things that we compare ourselves with. Some we might feel that we are better than other people, and others we feel worse.

Whether we do it intentionally or not we tend to try and rank ourselves against other people we know or come across… saying something like:

“I am better than George” or

“I wish I could be as good as Susie”, or

“If I had those trainers, then I would feel accepted”

When we make these comparisons we fall into the trap of valuing ourselves based on other people and other things rather than on God.

Let’s see what the Bible says about this in 2 Corinthians 10 : 12 - 18.

Here we see Paul telling the people not to try and make comparisons between each other. The reason for this was simple, any comparisons they attempt to make would be wrong because they were not basing their measurement on the right things.

They were trying to measure the work of our immensely powerful God, who’s plan for our lives, and for the lives of the Corinthians (who Paul was writing to) was unique to each individual.

So as we saw in 2 Corinthians comparing what God is doing in our lives with other people is like measuring something without the right equipment, which as you are about to discover is pretty hard work.

Your task over the next 10 minutes using just the items in this pot is to as accurately as you can measure:

• The diameter of the room
• The weight of a chair
• The height of a table

God is the only one who is able to measure our successes.

Anything else we try and compare ourselves with doesn’t even come close.

The Bible is full of examples where people made this mistake and tried to compare themselves to others. When they do they often end up feeling inadequate, as we have seen is the case for poor old Moses over the past few weeks. Alternatively we might go to the other extreme and end up with a massive ego instead.

Jesus told a parable about this in Luke 18 : 9 - 14 where we see a religious leader, a Pharisee and a tax collector. We see the Pharisee making the mistake of comparing himself to the other guy and letting his ego grow unchecked.

His inflated ego meant that he blinded himself from the problems in his own life. Instead of addressing problems that existed in his life and ask God for forgiveness he focused on being smug and making other people feel bad. Which we see from the passage benefited no one in the end.

Can you think of any examples in our own lives where we let our egos get in the way of doing the things that God wants for us?

After all this talk of comparison there is one comparison that definitely is good for us to make. That is the comparison between us having a life with Jesus, and one without. John explains in John 3 : 16 - 21 why Jesus makes all of the difference.

So let’s delve into this a bit deeper… what differences can we see mentioned in this passage between those who believe in Jesus and those without him?

There is no point us trying to compare with other people, as God has a different plan for all of us. The key thing is we should compare is where we are and where God wants us to be.