Comparison 2 - 2 Corinthians 10:14-18

10:14-18 - We’ve learned to not compare ourselves with other, and I think that there are two ways that people can use this in their lives. Those who compare themselves to others and feel unworthy and those who compare themselves to others and feel superior. When someone hears that they shouldn’t compare themselves to others, it’s really difficult to overcome that because they’ve been doing it for so long. But those who feel unworthy compared to others might have an easier time transitioning out of that mindset than those who feel superior. I guess if we think about it, ultimately the reason why people do either one of those things is because they don’t believe that they personally are worth anything of value. If someone can look at the projection someone puts on in public and think, “I’m not good enough,” then the solution is for them to learn self-worth and who they really are to God. If someone can look at another person’s projection and think “I’m better than them,” they are using a false narrative to inflate their feelings of self-worth. They don’t truly believe that they are good enough to hold any value, so they tell denigrate others to hold a superficial sense of superiority. It’s a fool’s gold concept. It seems like Paul is saying that they are using God’s standards as their guide of worthiness and value and they aren’t going beyond that because they are coming to preach “the gospel of Christ.” I don’t really understand all that he’s saying, but it seems to me that he wants the Corinthians to know that he’s traveling around to preach the gospel, and tells people about the success in other areas, not so that think he’s great, but to show the power of God and the gospel. He uses the word “boast” a lot in this chapter and the article about this chapter on gospeldoctrine.com quotes Bruce R. McConkie as noting, “Boasting is of two kinds: either righteous, or unrighteous; either in the arm of flesh, or in the Lord and his gracious goodness and power.” I guess what’s really important here is our motivation. How our words and actions are perceived by others is out of our control, but as long as we are saying and doing things to demonstrate the goodness of God, whether or not it’s perceived that way, doesn’t really have a lot to do with us. Paul says that he doesn’t want to take credit for other people’s work, he doesn’t preach the gospel to become powerful or self-serving and he urges the people that “he that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord.” This is like when Ammon met up with his fellow missionaries and was accused of boasting, and he responded, “I do not boast in my own strength, nor in my own wisdom; but behold, my joy is full, yea, my heart is brim with joy, and I will rejoice in my God. Yea, I know that I am nothing; as to my strength I am weak; therefore I will not boast of myself, but I will boast of my God, for in his strength I can do all things.” It can be a fine line, but again it goes back to what our intentions are when we “boast” because like Ammon’s brother took his words to be self-inflating, he didn’t mean it like that. So not only are we to “glory in the Lord,” but we are also let the Lord decide what we deserve and how worthy we are. We don’t need to get our feelings of self-worth and value from other people, both bad and good. If we can remove comparison from our lives, it would free up a lot of our mental energy to focus on other, more important things, and give us room to work out our self-worth in a relationship with the Savior.