Spirituality is not a competition, so get over yourself!

I have such an amazing God! Truly I believe I do. I know He loves me and I don’t have to prove it to make sure it’s true. I look around at Christians and get so upset with how many of them play the Christian version of, ‘keeping up with the Jones'.’ You know those people who want to make sure they are equal to or above the people around them, with the biggest house, car, best kids? Well I am talking about those people who do that on a spiritual level.  I am talking about the people who have to try and prove how spiritual and Godly they are by always sharing the things that they do in order to prove that they love God so much more than you and that God loves them more than you because of what they do and you should look to them for advanced spiritualness because they are superior to you in the faith.

I don’t have to ‘prove,’ my God loves me to anyone around me by the things I do, have or say. I don’t have to show how spiritual I am by pretending that everything in life is hunky dory. I don’t have to prove anything about my life to know that to God I am equal to all those around me. Just because you may own a big home, a fancy car, speak the right words, or hang out with the ‘overly spiritual’ people means that God loves you more than the next person. We are all on equal ground.

God doesn’t see the person who is a missionary in Uganda any more special than He sees you or me sitting here in the US. He doesn’t measure me up to the person that has witnessed to thousands or has a million dollars and gave more than I make in a given year to the church. Each person is blessed with different abilities, talents and situations for all sorts of reasons and He puts us in the places we need to be to reach the people he wants us to reach out too. He may only have you reach one person and to your sister a thousand and one.

What I do not understand about the Christian perspective is the constant competition that seems to be out there to see who is more holy, or more Godly than the next person.  Part of Christianity really reminds me of living in high school all over again with how we can treat one another so poorly.  We can be so thoughtless and treat each other with such superiority that we honestly start to believe that ‘we’ are the answer to everyone else’s problems and if they would just ask me, they would be so much better off spiritually.

If we take a look at what the Bible says and what Jesus says regarding this we would soon realize that these actions are not just weird, they are wrong! We are to build each other up as Christians and encourage each other. We are not to play superiority games or try and make sure everything we do is seen by everyone so they all know just how spiritual we are. Being a good Christian is doing those things, but not having to tell everyone in the world that we helped the homeless today so we get the reactions we are looking for when we do tell people that. The Bible is very straight forward about such actions of bragging about your good deeds.  In Matthew 6: 1-4 Jesus says;

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others.  Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full.  But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

Sometimes letting someone know a good deed that is done is helpful for building them up spiritually when they are feeling down, or alone, or that there maybe is no good left in the world. Or sharing a story of how God has helped you through something is awesome, but only when it is for the cause of building up someone, not for the cause of trying to prove how spiritual we are or how much we think we need to prove God loves us. When we all remember we are all sinners on the same path to heaven, going through life together it becomes easier to just be, and not try to be something more than we are. We are all Christians, really to each other we have nothing left to prove, for we all know that we are saved by the same amount of Grace and Love that flowed down from the cross.

 As Christians our job to each other isn’t to prove how God loves us more or how He loves us at all, our job is to build each other up spiritually and to encourage one another. Our job to none believes is to try and help them understand why we are happy and free to be the way we are because of Jesus love for us and we are to share it in a giving, loving manner not with an attitude that we have a superiority complex and think we are better than them because of what we know, believe, and have.

God never intended His love to turn into a competition He intended it to be shown and given to all equally no matter of personal circumstances.