Today’s the day to break the spirit of competition. It’s time to snipe out a little fox that spoils our vines, that spoils our fellowships. Too many powerful men and women of God are coming around each other and being divided.
Not because of truth, not because of spirit, but because of competition.
When on-fire brothers and sisters come together, it should be an explosion. Yet Saul, Judas, and Cain creep in and make us jealous. Steer our focus. Who can preach deeper, who can manifest more power, who can do that, who can do this? We have gotten so focused on this that we’re missing Christ. You may not be in false doctrine, you may be as clean as a whistle. Yet for you, it may be this one thing. When you get around your brother, when you get around your sister, something stirs in you.
Something wants to drive you to perform so that you could be compared to them. So that you would not seem small to everybody else compared to others. If others are seeing you like that and comparing you to others, then their judgment and focus are wrong because we are all small. Christ is the big deal amongst us.
Who He chooses to move through has nothing to do with making someone better than the other. How He chooses to manifest is His choice. It’s His choice in whom He chooses to be an apostle, a prophet, a pastor, teacher, or evangelist. Comparing ourselves amongst each other is like comparing apples to apples.
The gifts are the movement of the Holy Spirit. The callings are the move of the Holy Spirit. The Bible says it is the spirit that does all this. It’s not us that makes the gift move. It’s the spirit that’s makes the gift move. He is the gift. He is the calling. When somebody’s gift is manifesting, when someone’s calling is manifesting, it’s because the Holy Spirit is moving.
That’s why Paul said to stir up the gift inside of you that was given to you by the laying on of hands. He didn’t say stir up the fivefold ministry gift in you. He didn’t say stir up the gift of healing. He said the gift that was given to you by the laying on of hands. What gift did you receive by the laying on of hands or by the laying on of God’s hand? The helper! The Holy Spirit! The Bible calls it the Gift of the Holy Spirit. This is the gift of gifts. When we focus on this one gift, it activates all the other gifts. He’s saying stir up God when he says to stir up the gift. The Holy Spirit is God. Stir up Christ in you. Pull on the hem of His garment. Desire Him, seek Him! This is how we stir Him up, and through that stirring up of God, the gifts start to operate!
When you compare your gift to someone else’s gift, you're comparing the Holy Spirit to the Holy Spirit! Why compare, just give Him glory. If you’re comparing then you're worried about your glory. The gifts and callings are without repentance. The Holy Spirit can use you and then let you walk into hell after it’s all done. The gifts and callings are without repentance.
Don’t glory when God uses you, don’t glory when you cast out demons. Glory that your name is written in the lamb’s book of life! What He’s saying is don’t glory in power, don’t glory in gifts, callings, and manifestations. Glory in the fact that you're in Him! Glory that you're His son. Glory that you get to be with Him forever!
Glory that you will be counted worthy because you know Him and He knows you. I’d rather do little than much if He’s only called me to do little because, in the end, all that matters is when He says well done good and faithful servant. If I want to do more than what He’s called me to, it means that I want to live for me.
Our determination should be to just do what He wants us to do, nothing more or nothing less. Not what our brother is doing, not what our sister is doing, just what we’re supposed to be doing. If we focus on the eyes of others, the words and opinions of others…How they see us. What they don’t see, what they do see. How impressed they are with us or not. What the crowd is thinking about. How popular you are amongst the crowd… This is how we get tied up. Anyone can get tied up in this if their mind is thinking about this. That’s why we have to keep our minds off of it and on Him at all times. When the devil tries to compare us to our brother, we must strongly resist.
When Saul saw the mighty things that David was doing and the reaction of the people to the might of David, Saul’s heart fell. He suddenly began to be captivated by the thoughts of the people. Here came competition, here came that comparing. When we think about what the crowd is saying and seeing, we compare.
When David wasn’t around, Saul wasn't thinking about that. Yet when he felt his image was threatened, he went after David. Yet Saul's position was never really threatened, even though God already planned for David to be king. If Saul kept his heart in the Lord, he could have passed it on to David rightly.
If Saul wasn’t worried about his own image, he could have rejoiced in David and saw him as an asset to his kingdom. Yet he saw him as a threat because he wanted to be placed high in the people’s minds. David never got tied up like Saul did because he wasn't worried about the people. He was worried about God's will, and because of that God exalted Himself in David.
Not because David was a special person from birth but because David was a man after God’s own heart and he kept his heart after God. Maybe Saul was after God at one point. Yet because of competition and comparing, he changed his pursuit to after the heart of the people and lost the anointing.
So what if the people don’t see you in one way or the other. If you're doing everything that God is wanting you to do, then you’re operating in the highest level that God wants you to be at. For some, thousands will glory over their lives. For others, only a few. But none of that will matter because even the false prophets are loved and have big followings. Millions of hosts of heaven will rejoice over your life when He says, “Well done good and faithful servant.”
We can’t hear their praises now. We can’t see the joy of heaven over our lives now. Yet one day we will. Yet we can feel the joy of the Father now when we focus on solely pleasing Him. We need to resist the temptation to think about how others see us and how we are compared to others.
“For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.” 2 Corinthians 10:12
It is not wise. The kingdom does not measure things according to how we measure things. How God measures things is not according to what actions we do, what manifestations come out of us, or what exploits we do. The Kingdom of God measures men by how they carry their heart. The measure of a man is the measure of His heart.
There will be men and women that will do more exploits and miracles than anybody in the body, but some of them will still burn forever because their heart was full of darkness. The things that will matter most on judgment day is the works of our heart and mind. It’s not about how much you do, it’s about what you do with what God gave you. Remember the parable of the talents.
God gave some lots of talents and some a few. Yet all that mattered is what they did with what they had! So why compare yourself amongst others when God is the one who decides to give to each one a certain measure of Himself! The one that has one talent, should not compare himself to the one that has five.
You cannot control how many talents you have, the only thing you can control is how faithful you will be with what God gives you. And that is a matter of the heart! What matters is when we make one talent ten and five, five more. That takes faithfulness. God didn’t care how much each servant brought back but because they doubled their talents, it showed their faithfulness. The talents don’t matter, the exploits don’t matter, the heart does. Do not measure yourselves to each other, but measure your hearts according to the Word of God and rejoice when you are in alignment!
By Joe Pinto
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