Appearance

Often in life it is easy to be discouraged because others have their lives together. The reality is that we as people almost always present the best perspective of ourselves but know the realities of our life that others do not.

You see each person presents the best front for themselves and hides what is less pleasant. This is why often our initial impression of others can be quite off.

We are often discouraged because others have their lives together and we do not. You see since we often only see the best side of others we do not know the reality of things.

Life is difficult and comparison is not helpful. You see God has not placed the same challenges in each person's life. We all face unique things in life.

We should live ideally day by day resting in God's grace. Our faithfulness to God is all that matters. It does not matter how our works or life or faith compares to others. It is often not even possible for us to know.

The only question is what God would have us do today out of love for him. How will we live out the love of God in the world today.

Celebration

The bible calls us to celebrate with the joy and success of others. We should delight in the success of those we know.

Often as people we act as if the success of our brother in some ways makes our success less. It as if the successes only have value in comparison.

We need to learn to see our lives in community. We can do more with others than we can do alone.

We often seek value in our accomplishments and this is the issue. Our ultimate value is in God. If we see everything in relation to God then we see that he is the one who gives success.

We should rejoice with the successes of others. Alone we are weak but together in Christ we are strong.

Humanity and Oneself

Often in life as we look upon humanity and the problems which it has we mentally exclude ourselves from humanity. It is the human condition of pride which makes it easy for us to only see the problems in humanity and not see the manifestations in ourselves.

Often it is a process of self justification by comparison of degree. We are above average on kindness or this or that virtue so we are alright.

The bible always measures our life by perfection. It is of course an impossibly difficult standard which we cannot keep.

That is of course why Jesus offered his life as a ransom in our place. You see God commands the impossible of us, but he also gives the impossible freely.

It is interesting the great frustration with the lack of fairness many people find in Christianity. How is everyone not saved?

It is an interesting question of unbelief that fails to grasp the human condition and the lengths at which God has gone to save anyone. In the writers' of scriptures mind it is not surprising that anyone is condemned, that is a given. What is surprising is that any are saved.