This Day in History: 0000-09-15

September 15 – Galatians 6:4-5 

Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else. For we are each responsible for our own conduct. 

This one is short, sweet, and just jampacked with truth!  And it kinda stings a little doesn’t it?  Why is it so hard to pay attention to our own work? Let alone careful attention!  Why is it so difficult to abstain from the comparison game?   

What’s funny is that in the verses just before these Paul tells the Galatians to gently and humbly help other believers who have been overcome by sin back onto the right path.  So, when we take these verses in context, they’re not telling us to isolate and live life alone.  What they are telling us, I believe, is that nothing good ever comes from our constant tendency to hold everyone else to a standard to which we don’t even hold ourselves.  It’s the problem that got the Pharisees in trouble, it’s the root sin of legalism, and it’s a problem inborn into almost all of us!   

Let’s choose to be different.  Let’s choose to pay careful attention to our own work! Let’s stop comparing ourselves to others. Because what good ever comes from comparison?  Either we’re tearing someone else down in our pride by looking down our noses at them and thinking ourselves better; or we’re wallowing in unnecessary self-loathing by trying to be what God has called someone else to be, instead of what He’s called us to be.  Either way, dear sisters, it’s unacceptable and not behavior suitable for His dearly loved daughters!  We are each responsible for our own conduct.  We each will stand before God one day and answer only for what we have done! No one else!  So let’s be obedient in this, then we will get the satisfaction of a job well done!