"For we are not bold to class or compare ourselves with some of those who commend themselves; but when they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with themselves, they are without understanding." (2 Corinthians 10:12)
Yeah, to measure yourself by yourself doesn't really allow much room for growth does it? Also it causes the light of those God places in your path to refract through the wrong lens because you begin to compare them using that same skewed standard.
Oh surely God will erect warning signs around you. At first you will see them a long way off and easily go right around most of them. It's when you come down life's rocky road a piece and you are weary that He'll get your attention. There will soon come a day when your head will be down, muscles weak, heart pounding with sweat dripping down your face ( I think I can, I think I can) that you'll look up just in time to see the big, orange caution sign before it hits you square in the head. Believe me, I know of what I speak. There is only one plumb-line, He is Love and His Name is Jesus Christ.
"For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf. Therefore from now on we recognize no one according to the flesh; even though we have known Christ according to the flesh, yet now we know Him in this way no longer. Therefore if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (2 Corinthians 5:14-17)
Just like the barren ground left dead by winter will soon bear fruit come springtime, once the Light and warmth of God are present in a Human heart it will also bear good fruit in its season (Psalms 1:3).
The reason we don't compare or measure ourselves or others by ourselves is that in so doing none could ever be made Free. For that same reason we also do not judge others or even ourselves; it is God that examines our hearts because He is the only One who truly can (Romans 14:4, 9-10).
Luckily for us, it is only by His Grace and perfect Love that any are examined or acquitted.
"But to me it is a very small thing that I may be examined by you, or by any human court; in fact, I do not even examine myself. For I am conscious of nothing against myself, yet I am not by this acquitted; but the one who examines me is the Lord." (1 Corinthians 4:3-4)
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