Comparison Steals More Than Our Joy
Who is the person you compare yourself to most often? Perhaps it is a family member, friend, or co-worker; perhaps it is even a celebrity.
We humans are comparison machines. We’re constantly evaluating the stimuli around us. Social media has exacerbated the issue, giving us instant access to the highlight reels of thousands of friends and celebrities. Psychology Today reports that, “According to some studies, as much as 10 percent of our thoughts involve comparisons of some kind.” This kind of corrosive comparison is harmful. Ray Cummings put it this way: “The thief of joy is comparison.” His words pierce.
Yet comparison steals more than our joy; it also steals our humility, repentance, and worship.
In the eighth century BC God called the shepherd and fig farmer Amos to bring a word of rebuke to Jeroboam, the king of Israel, of the impending destruction if Israel did not repent. Life was going relatively well for Israel under Jeroboam. Israel was seemingly protected from being in the crosshairs of the world’s powers and had relative economic prosperity. They compared themselves to their neighbors and gave themselves high marks in morality. (For context, Jonah’s escapade with Nineveh had not long passed.) God was under no such illusions of their right living. Sure, they went through the motions in their worship to God, but they also worshiped false gods. They were lazy, oppressive to the poor, grossly indulgent, and arrogant.
They “lie on beds of ivory and stretch themselves out on their couches.” They “sing idle songs,” “drink wine,” dab “the finest oils” on themselves, and don’t have a care in the world over the “ruin” Israel has become (Amos 6:4–6). How does this affect their God? God doesn’t mince words:
I abhor the pride of Jacob
and hate his strongholds,
and I will deliver up the city and all that is in it. (Amos 6:8b)
God was not deceived by Israel’s comparison. They were the student getting a 54% on their final exam, expecting his grade to get pulled up to respectability by the power of the curve because he was surrounded by equally slothful classmates. But a passing grade was not in the books for Israel. Little were they concerned that within their lifetimes, the northern Kingdom would be no more, crushed and scattered by the Assyrians (Amos 6:7).
God tells Israel that he doesn’t grade on a curve, his standards are perfect. And their time is up. He shows Amos a vision of a “wall built with a plumb line” (Amos 7:7). He declares,
Behold, I am setting a plumb line
in the midst of my people Israel;
I will never again pass by them. (Amos 7:8b)
Perhaps, like me, your construction experience is limited. A plumb line is a string with a weight attached to the end. Masons and carpenters use a plumb line to create a vertical line. When the string is placed beside a wall, the weight dangles freely. Then it can become clear whether the wall is perfectly vertical. If the wall is leaning to one side, it will eventually collapse. And so it is when anyone other than Jesus is our plumb line.
When we use others as our righteousness yardstick, our miscalculation leads to a flawed measurement. Worse yet, this miscalculation in our judgment gives rise to self-righteousness and arrogance.
There is only one measure of righteousness, and it is Christ himself. In Isaiah, the Lord likens himself to a mason building a temple with perfectly vertical lines, especially the cornerstone which is perfect in righteousness.
Behold, I am the one who has laid as a foundation in Zion,
a stone, a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone, of a sure foundation:
“Whoever believes will not be in haste.”
And I will make justice the line,
and righteousness the plumb line. (Isa. 28:16–17a)
Jesus audaciously claims this cornerstone is himself. Jesus Christ, then, is not only the standard by whom we are judged, he is the only string who makes us perfectly vertical. We can be plumb because of Christ.
Peter reflects on this work God is doing in us: “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 2:4–5). In Philippians, Paul reflects back on all of his attempts to make himself righteous and then looks to Christ in awe and gratitude as he considers that he could not attain “a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith” (Phil. 3:9). For in all of Paul’s efforts, he could not make himself plumb. But, by the grace of God, Christ not only revealed Paul’s sin, but imputed to him Christ’s own righteousness.
Comparison is, indeed, the thief of joy. It is also the thief of righteousness in that comparison causes us to find our own perceived righteousness by seeing less righteousness in others.
I flip open Twitter to watch from the sidelines of another evangelical intramural debate where interlocutors are rude and critical. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector” (Luke 18:11). I switch to Facebook where I observe friends humblebrag and manipulate others. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” I swipe over to Instagram where acquaintances reveal their need to present their manicured lives in a way that earns them fawning compliments. “God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.”
“God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13).
Beware the slender isthmus of comparison: the precipice of envy on one side, the precipice of pride on the other.
Do not allow comparison to enable you to coddle your sin, to replace the plumb line of Christ.
Christ our cornerstone is our only hope for righteousness. May he make straight our crooked walls by his precious double work of atonement and imputation. He has taken our crookedness and given us his righteousness. To him be the glory.
John Beeson serves as co-lead pastor at New Life Bible Fellowship in Tucson, Arizona. He attended Gordon College and Princeton Theological Seminary and is married with two kids. He blogs at The Bee Hive. He is the coauthor of Blogging for God’s Glory in a Clickbait World and the coauthor with his wife Angel of Trading Faces: Removing the Masks that Hide Your God-Given Identity.