THE SPIRIT OF RIVALRY AND COMPETITION

COMPETITION has been defined as the activity or condition of striving to gain or win something by defeating or establishing superiority over others.

This happens when we become too obsessed with trying to beat everyone around us. We want to be better than everybody, even when we don't have the talents to do what the other person is doing we want to beat them. You don't know how to sing, but you are trying to sing, you don't know how to do account, but you want to be an accountant, you don't know how to be a salesman but you are forcing yourself to be one. Simply because you want to beat somebody else. That is greed and it would destroy you.
The only reason why lucifer is the Devil and Satan as we know him today is because of COMPETITION.

".......... ....... I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High..... "
Isaiah 14:13-14 KJV

Satan is competitive, the entire problem of satan today is competition. Satan tried to compete with God and the world today following Satan are competing with each other.

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GOD HATES COMPETITION

Now I'm not talking about competition in relations to sports but as it relates to life. One way to be miserable, unfulfilled and unhappy in life is to compete with each other.
We where not created by God to compete with each other, each person has his own race to run and when you are running another person's race in the name of competition you can never have fulfillment no matter how far you've gone, as speed is irrelevant when you are running in the Wrong Direction.
God hates competition, the following bible passages shows that:

• Ecclesiastes 4:4-6 NLT

"Then I observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbors. But this, too, is meaningless–like chasing the wind.“Fools fold their idle hands, leading them to ruin.” And yet, “Better to have one handful with quietness than two handfuls with hard work and chasing the wind.”

• Galatians 6:4 NLT

"Pay careful attention to your own work, for then you will get the satisfaction of a job well done, and you won’t need to compare yourself to anyone else."

• Luke 16:15

"And he said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God."

• Philippians 2:3-4

"Do nothing out of rivalry or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. Everyone should look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others."

• Galatians 5:19-20

" Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions".

• Romans 12:2

" Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect. "

• James 3:14-15

" But if you are bitterly jealous and there is selfishambition in your heart, don’t cover up the truth with boasting and lying. For jealousy and selfishness are not God’s kind of wisdom. Such things are earthly, unspiritual, and demonic."

• Galatians 5:24-26

"Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other."

In Luke 9:46-48 an argument started among the disciples as to whom among them would be the greatest. Jesus, knowing the intents of their heart, took a little lad and had him stand by him. Then he said to them, it is the one who is the least among them that is the greatest.

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I WANT TO BE THE BEST

It's good to have ambition in life, but you cannot be the best over somebody else. You can only be the best of yourself and not over somebody else.

When you are nursing the ambition of greatness, don't have such ambition with another person as a yardstick. The best thing you can be is to be what God wants you to be.

Use your skills, use your ability, use your strength, perfect yourself, improve yourself but don't do that with somebody else as your target.

Sometime we go through life and all we are doing in life is trying to compete against somebody else. I want to be better than so so and so......

Practical Examples:

I heard of a case of two friends who were pregnant and one of them delivered earlier and a month or so the second of them delivered.

The first question she asked the nurses was

"Is my baby bigger than my friend's??"

A child has just been born and he's already been used as a tool for competition. And who said a bigger baby is a better baby?

All these parameters set by men for competitive reasons..it's just evil and of the devil.

And there are people who are like that.

You hear stuffs like..

Is his wife more beautiful than my wife?

What a crazy question.

Any man that asks such a question needs to be lashed on the bare back.

How can you ask whether somebody's wife is more beautiful than your wife?

What is beauty anyway??

What is handsome anyway?

I am the most handsome Michael Emmanuel available on the plannet.

But that is the best that I can be. I am not more handsome than any other person on the plannet. I am just the best version of me and not the best against somebody else. How can you compare my nose with your nose? The Structure is different.

RUN YOUR RACE

Sometimes we run a race that's not ours.

Satan said:

I would ascend above the stars of God.. I would do this, I would do that.. Who cares?

Is that where you are supposed to be?

Don't fight a battle that is not yours.

Some people even pursue a profession that is not theirs all in a bid to compete against somebody else.

Your best friend became an engineer, so you want to beat him, so you become a doctor and now you are murdering people in the name of surgery.
You didn't want to be a doctor you just wanted to prove a point and show that I can do better.

EFFECTS OF COMPETITION

When you become so competitive you can't even appreciate your life. Because life is not about competition.

In a class, someone is gonna be first and someone is gonna be last whether we like it or not.

Somebody's child would be first, somebody's child would be last.

As a parent you have to learn to appreciate every child. Who said that because a child's name is at the botherline he would be a botherline person?

There are a thousand proves around the world to disproves this. Ask Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gate or Dangote what grades they made in school.

How many people that where actually top of their class are leading the world today?

Whoever said that your value is determined by 50%, 100% or the red ink of your teacher's biro??

Life isn't about competition for grades.

If you would just pursue yourlife, you would know that no one can really grade you for who you are and what you would become.
You can become far greater than the expections of people or that you can ever imagine for yourself.

But if you don't know this you are going to spend all your life trying to be like somebody else.

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The only competition that you had to win was against over 200 million other individuals(sperm cells) having won that race to be the person that you are now. I don't see any other competition that's worth your time.

Think on these things..
SELAH

Do have a pleasant Evening.

You are aided.

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