VL - Issue 18 - November 2015

UNIQUELY YOU
by Rick Renner
I have struggled terribly with inferiority.
Inadequacy, insufficiency, incompetence, and
deficiency are just a few words to express the
feelings that tried to master my self-image. I learned
much from my experience with that struggle, as
well as a great truth I found in my studies of 2
Corinthians 10:12 nkjv: “They, measuring themselves
by themselves, and comparing themselves among
themselves, are not wise.” I believe the principle I
discovered in this verse will help you if you’re facing
a similar challenge and long to be free.
When our teaching ministry was first getting
started in the 1980s, I wondered who would
ever want to have us minister in their church or
conference. My wife, Denise, and I had been living in
a small city and had very few contacts beyond our
little circle, so it seemed like a logical question. On
one hand, I knew God had called us to teach His
Word across the earth—but on the other hand, I
questioned how that call would work. No one knew
who we were. No one had ever heard us teach
the Bible. There was simply no logical reason why
anyone would invite us to teach the Word in his or
her church or conference.
We began to schedule meetings in small churches
all across the United States. We joyfully walked
through every door and took every opportunity that
opened for us, even accepting invitations to speak in
home Bible studies. But frequently, the enemy would
bombard my mind with tormenting thoughts that
inflamed the old feelings of insecurity: “This is it for
you! You’ll never do anything with your call on a
large or significant scale. Your entire ministry will be
to small groups of people!”
When we would get into our car to leave those
meetings, I’d share my struggles with Denise,
and she’d try to encourage me. But the devil was
hounding me with accusing thoughts of impending
IF YOU WILL SIMPLY QUIT
COMPARING YOURSELF TO
OTHERS TODAY…YOU WILL
OPEN THE DOOR TO FREEDOM
FROM A SPIRIT OF INFERIORITY
SO THAT YOUR UNIQUE
GIFTS CAN BEGIN TO SHINE
BRIGHTLY AS GOD INTENDED.
failure, telling me that I would be insignificant for
the rest of my life.
I especially felt assaulted when we attended
conferences or seminars to hear other speakers.
Rather than being blessed by those meetings, I was
busy trying to defend my mind against the barrage
of negative thoughts that assailed me almost
constantly. I vividly recall the devil telling me:
“You don’t measure up to other speakers.”
“Your style isn’t like theirs.”
“You are nothing and you have nothing to offer
in comparison to others.”
“You’ll live and die a failure because you are too
different from everyone else, and you’ll never be
accepted.”
I fell into the trap of measuring and comparing
myself to others—and the end result was always
feeling like I fell hopelessly short. The devil literally
tried to devastate me with feelings of inadequacy,
deficiency, and inferiority. The more I compared
myself to others, the more I felt “less than”—that
is, until God’s Spirit reached into my heart and set
me free!
The reason I share this intimate struggle from my
past is that I know there are many who compare
themselves to others as I once did. In fact, this may
be your struggle. If it is, I hope what I found in 2
Corinthians 10:12 will help set you free, just as it
helped me find freedom from that terrible mental
bondage that almost crippled me and my ministry.
When the apostle Paul wrote his second epistle
to the Corinthians, he told them that comparing
themselves among themselves was not wise.
The word wise in this verse was translated from
the Greek word sophos, which means specially
enlightened, wise, sharp, or bright. This verse could
be interpreted: “Comparing yourselves among
yourselves is not the wisest, sharpest, or brightest
thing to do.”
I can attest from personal experience that
comparing yourself to others is not the brightest
thing to do! It can be a fruitless endeavor that
makes you feel worse and even more inferior and
insecure than you ever felt before.
The word comparing in 2 Corinthians 10:12 is
the Greek word sunkrino, and it paints the picture
of two or more people standing side by side to
thoroughly examine themselves in comparison to
one another—and then critically judging to see
who is superior among the candidates. One group
would be classified as superior, while the other
group would be classified as inferior relative to that
other group. The simple truth is that such comparing
is a fleshly endeavor that produces no spiritual fruit!
It puts one up, puts another down, and fails to
recognize the manifold, diverse graces of God that
exist in the Christian community.
The Corinthian believers were fighting among
themselves to prove who was the greatest among
them. When Paul wrote this verse, he wrote it to
continued on page 30
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