Have you a standard? What is a standard? According to the definition, it is a level of quality or attainment. It is an idea or thing used as a measure or model to compare. Okay, so have you a standard in which you measure? I believe the danger in comparing one’s standard to another is that there are a whole lot of variables. Let’s take education. One person may have been blessed to have achieved a very high level of education compared to another. Does that make the one person greater in stature than the other? Some may measure the two and come to the conclusion, yes the more educated one is greater. In fairness, was there an evaluation to determine sufficiently equal enough to compare? Perhaps, but chances are, maybe not. You can use many things in this world to compare for a standard like politics (ie: Dems vs Reps. ; Libs vs Cons. ; Left vs Right, etc.). How about religion? There are many beliefs even within the Christian community. Within the Muslim world, there is not unity either. If we have difficulty trying to determine a fair standard, maybe we should lift our sights higher.
Ephesians 4:2-6 indicates to me that we should preserve unity. Attributes such as humility, gentleness and patience should be part of our standard as we accept each other with love. This is hard to do if our standards are set low. We play childish games with each other trying to prove our standard is better than theirs. Until we reach a higher plateau of unity, we may continue to struggle. “God’s goal is for us to become mature adults—-to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.” (Ep 4:13) Keep raising your standards until you reach maturity where you are no longer comparing your standard to others, but accept the one divine standard.
T