All Access

Knowing Better, part 2

Sophie - July 6, 2011

Remember last week, when I told y'all a little bit about Beth's "Knowing Better" message at Living Proof Live in Lincoln?

Well, this is the follow-up post.

I'm sure that y'all have been sitting right next to your computers for, oh, DAYS - just waiting for the second installment.

Oh, I kid. Kiddy McKidderson KId.

With all the kidding.

Anyway, I do want to elaborate on point two, mainly because I thought that it spoke to an issue that many women face but rarely talk about: feeling competitive with other women.

Like I mentioned last week, Beth pointed out that better is bitter when better is someone besides me, and she challenged us to remember Galatians 5:25-26: "Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other." The Message translation of that passage will get in your business a little bit:

Since this is the kind of life we have chosen, the life of the Spirit, let us make sure that we do not just hold it as an idea in our heads or a sentiment in our hearts, but work out its implications in every detail of our lives. That means we will not compare ourselves with each other as if one of us were better and another worse. We have far more interesting things to do with our lives. Each of us is an original.

Even though we're all originals, even though God has given each of us a unique calling, competition and insecurity inevitably creep into our lives. We don't have to be controlled by those things, though, and Beth talked about how the cure for being threatened by people is the biggest irony of them all - and you can find the "vaccination" for comparison in Philippians 2:1-4:

If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Beth advised that we listen to the what the Lord says in Philippians 2, that we beat the enemy to the punch and consider the other person better from the start. That's the vaccination. If we get that mentality from the very beginning, Beth said, we won't fall under the threat of it. You esteem that person before the Lord, and you'll feel the blessing of it and the freedom of it.

(You have to really mean it, by the way.)

(Because God sort of knows when we're faking it.)

Beth went on to say that we need to quit looking over our shoulders, wondering if whoever is "behind" us is about to catch up. Instead, put that person in front. Bless that person. Die to any spirit of rivalry; agree with whatever the Lord is doing in the other person's life. There's no room for competition in the body of Christ.

Even our self-loathing can be a form of pride. It's the "vain conceit" mentioned in Philippians 2. Vain conceit is empty glory - and we need to get rid of it.

Beth closed by reminding us of a distinction between pride and humility:

When PRIDE thinks of others as better, better is bitter.
When HUMILITY thinks of others as better, better is better.

Hope this part of her message encourages y'all today!

Category: Events