Comparison Breeds Inferiority

[00:00:20] Hello and welcome to this newest episode of Become A Competent Biblical Counselor.

[00:00:26] I'm Dr. Dave Jones and today's episode is entitled Quit Comparing Yourself to Others.

[00:00:33] This is probably one of the most severe and difficult problems that people face with respect to encompassing their self-concept, their self-worth, what they think about themselves, because comparing breeds inferiority.

[00:00:50] I ran across a man by the name of Rick Renner. He has a ministry called Rick Renner Ministries and he gave an account of a problem that he was having with comparison of others and how it was negatively impacting his ministry.

[00:01:06] And I want to share this story with you and I think you'll find it very enlightening.

[00:01:10] He says,

[00:01:11] Earlier in life, I struggled terribly with an inferiority complex.

[00:01:18] Inadequacy, insufficiency, incompetence, and deficiency are just a few words to express the feelings that tried to master my self-image.

[00:01:28] Today, I want to share what I learned from that experience as well as a great truth I found in my studies of 2 Corinthians 10.12 which says,

[00:01:38] They measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves are not wise.

[00:01:47] I believe that the principle I discovered in this verse will help you if you faced a similar struggle and you long to be free.

[00:01:56] Rick goes on and says,

[00:01:58] When our teaching ministry was first getting started, I wondered, who will ever want us to minister in a church or conference?

[00:02:06] My wife and I had been living in a small city and had very few contacts beyond our little circle, so it seemed like a logical question.

[00:02:14] On one hand, I knew that God had called us to teach His Word across the earth.

[00:02:19] But on the other hand, I questioned that call.

[00:02:22] How would it be fulfilled?

[00:02:24] No one knew who we were.

[00:02:26] No one had heard us teach the Bible.

[00:02:30] There was simply no logical reason for anyone to invite us to teach the Word in their churches or their conferences.

[00:02:37] But later on, some did.

[00:02:40] I especially felt assaulted when we attended conferences or seminars to hear other speakers.

[00:02:48] So rather than being blessed, I vividly recall the devil telling me,

[00:02:52] You don't measure up to other speakers.

[00:02:55] You are nothing in comparison to them.

[00:02:58] Your style isn't like theirs.

[00:03:00] You'll live and die a failure because you are too different from everyone else and you'll never be accepted.

[00:03:08] You are nothing and have nothing to offer in comparison to others.

[00:03:14] I fell into the trap of measuring and comparing myself against others with the end result of always feeling like I fell hopelessly short.

[00:03:24] The devil literally tried to devastate me with feelings of inadequacy, deficiency, and inferiority.

[00:03:32] The more I compared myself to others, the more I felt less than.

[00:03:38] That is, until God's Spirit reached into my heart and set me free.

[00:03:43] The reason I share this intimate struggle from my past is that I know there are many of you who compare yourselves to others as I once did.

[00:03:53] That may be your struggle.

[00:03:55] If it is, today I want to share what I found in this scripture that helped set me free.

[00:04:00] I believe the principle I discovered in this verse will help set you free as well.

[00:04:07] The thing that personally bothered me most was that I felt so different from other people.

[00:04:14] In fact, the issue of feeling strange or less than others began when I was a child.

[00:04:20] Even when I was very young, I felt that I was different in comparison to others.

[00:04:25] While all the other boys were playing football, I was visiting museums.

[00:04:31] While other boys were talking about and watching baseball games, I was taking art lessons and visiting the symphony.

[00:04:38] Although it is true I was different in many ways from my peers, the difference didn't mean I was inferior to them.

[00:04:46] However, at the very young moment of my life, the devil used those differences to show harmful thoughts into my soul that something had to be wrong with me because I was different than others.

[00:05:00] Years later, when I was an adult, this root was still affecting me as I fell into the trap of comparing myself to others and consistently feeling that I was too different to be accepted by them.

[00:05:13] What I thought was a negative trait, being different from others, was the very thing that made me uniquely qualified to fulfill my call.

[00:05:26] When I finally understood that God was the one who made me different, I began to see that I could shine His light in ways that others could not.

[00:05:36] What I thought would hold me back is actually what gave me my place in His plan.

[00:05:43] When I began to accept who God made me to be, I was freed from the devil's mental assault and began to step out of the shadows so God could begin to use me in a greater way.

[00:05:56] I was finally able to embrace my uniqueness that made me shine differently from others.

[00:06:01] That can be your story too.

[00:06:03] You can make the decision today that you're never going to go down that bumpy, twisted road of comparing yourself to others and always coming up short.

[00:06:13] Today, you're going to start celebrating the differences that made you uniquely you.

[00:06:20] So that was Rick Renner's struggle with comparison.

[00:06:26] And he struggled with it for his whole life.

[00:06:28] And I thought that would be important for you to experience that story.

[00:06:32] But it's true when you look around your life and see who's in your world, how many people have a horizontal relationship with their life instead of a vertical relationship.

[00:06:43] We're more concerned about what people think about how we dress or how we look compared to other people.

[00:06:50] How we talk, what kind of car we drive, what kind of house we live in, what kind of job we have.

[00:06:56] How we're always comparing ourselves so much with other people.

[00:07:00] That determines our self-worth.

[00:07:03] We feel good if we can place ourselves equal to or maybe in some areas above the status of other people.

[00:07:13] Instead of looking at life from God's point of view.

[00:07:17] And as I said earlier, comparison breeds inferiority.

[00:07:21] Well, if we continue comparing ourselves to everybody else, if you're in a sports team, for example.

[00:07:25] You just may be the best player on the team.

[00:07:28] But then again, you may not.

[00:07:31] But I think what's important too to realize with respect to comparing yourself with others is not necessarily compare trait with trait.

[00:07:40] But find something where you are different, where you excel better than anybody else.

[00:07:45] I remember a time when I was playing baseball.

[00:07:47] I was not necessarily the best pitcher or the best fielder.

[00:07:51] But what I wanted to be was the best sportsman.

[00:07:56] Nobody else thought about being the best sportsman.

[00:08:00] I wanted to get the award at the end of the year for the best outstanding sportsman.

[00:08:06] That's what I concentrated on.

[00:08:08] And I did my best to field the ball and throw the ball and hit the ball and run the bases and all of that.

[00:08:15] And my focus was something that nobody else was focusing on.

[00:08:19] I wanted that sportsman's trophy.

[00:08:22] So there's an idea.

[00:08:25] Instead of comparing yourself with the kind of car that you drive with respect to everybody else and what kind of a job you have compared to everybody else,

[00:08:32] find something you're really unique in that God has given you a gift, a trait, a personality that is totally different.

[00:08:43] That is your comparison with you.

[00:08:47] And how can you develop and grow that comparison to where it becomes a part of your life?

[00:08:53] I want to be a better servant of a gift that God has given me.

[00:08:57] So here's another idea with respect to comparison.

[00:08:59] How about comparing yourself with yourself?

[00:09:04] Today, I am experiencing this kind of a joy or whatever because of something that I did in my church or my neighborhood or whatever.

[00:09:14] And I want to grow that.

[00:09:16] If I witness to five people today, well, maybe next week I can get it up to 10 people.

[00:09:25] So you set goals to increase the comparison of what you're doing today with what you did last week and where you want to be this time next month.

[00:09:37] So there's a pretty good way of comparing yourself.

[00:09:42] But you're not comparing yourself with others.

[00:09:44] You're comparing yourself with your abilities.

[00:09:46] So anyway, be careful when people are talking to you that they're having problems with whatever they're having problems with.

[00:09:53] And look at this comparing issue and address it quickly.

[00:09:57] The Bible says those comparing themselves among themselves and measuring themselves by themselves are not wise.

[00:10:06] So that's comparison.

[00:10:08] Stop comparing yourself with others.

[00:10:11] And make it a blessed day.

[00:10:13] Thanks for listening.

[00:10:14] I'm coming to you.

[00:10:14] By the way.

[00:10:14] I'm coming to you next time.