Dictionary.com
defines the term 'competition' as: the act of competing; rivalry for supremacy,
or a prize, etc.; also a contest for some prize to win, honor, or advantage;
the rivalry offered by a competitor.
So much of our lives today get
marked, motivated, lead and influenced by to aspect of competition - whether
it’s in the ring of academics, athletics, politics, business, social status,
popular culture, military advancements, technology, work environments, religion
and pretty much every other aspect of Western Civilization.
The truth is that because being competitive is so embedded
in our society and our perspectives, no matter what situation we could possibly
be in, at any given time, the need to have a winner or a loser, to some degree,
is always understood, hoped for and pushed to ultimately attain.
What do you gain by you actually 'winning' in anything?
Whether it’s winning an argument with somebody, or being
better than another person at something or smarter than them because you
remembered something that they couldn't recall when the call to respond on a
topic presented itself.
What is it all for?
Clout? Respect?
Bragging rights? Keeping the ‘weaker’ person emotionally depended on you?
Manipulation for personal gain of influence?
Isn't the core of winning based upon your ability to be able
to perform at the given time of the contest?
Kinda sounds like the sports industry huh - or really
everywhere you could choose to look, because frankly, we can’t escape the need
to compete even if we wanted to.
The amazing thing about the Gospel message that Jesus
preached over 2,000 years is that, He says that in God's eyes, because we've
looked to ourselves, and our abilities and our knowledge to succeed, prosper or
'win' in this life apart from God being the source of our accomplishments,
we've actually lost everything that we could have possibly held on to qualify
ourselves, through ourselves, to be ‘winning’ or to be a success.
Literally, we are the
biggest loser.
When you look throughout history, how many civilizations
have attempted to get ahead or to advance or to grow their empires or establish
their footprint in known history, only to eventually fail and to have a legacy
that always has ended in defeat, shame or even total surrender and apparent
loss in some cases?
I can’t name or find
one that has passed into the ‘winning circle’.
See that’s the beauty of the Gospel, our sin, though it has
lead us astray as we live in enmity with God, has been championed by Jesus who has restored us back into right
relationship with God by giving Himself for our sin.
So what does completion specifically have to do with the
Gospel?
Because the way in which we compete and use competition
causes us to live as if we don’t need God, and if we even do, it’s always on a
conditional basis.
The bible tells us that in our weakness, we are made strong
in the Lord and in the power of His might; so if my dealings in any
relationship that I may have are coming from a place of being better than,
smarter than, faster than, wiser than, holier than anyone else, I have now
moved away from a position of total reliance on God and into the realm of doing
things for myself by myself.
Literally for us,
every day that we aren’t reading His word, submitting our thoughts to Him in
prayer, seeking His direction for the course of our lives and asking Him to
intervene for us in the situations we face, we are making ourselves
available for complete and total failure.
If we’ve historically lost because of thinking that we don’t
need Him to live, what makes us think that it will magically be different for
us now?
By nature we compete
to win but it’s always at someone else’s expense and sadly this is the way that
competition works.
It’s impossible to win without someone else being at some
form of an expense to be your second best, runner up or just plain not good enough to finish first.
The Gospel doesn’t even the playing field with losers and
winners in this life; the Gospel streamlines man’s (mankind’s) ambitions to live and shows him (us) that our
aspirations apart from God, will take us beyond getting over on other people and
lead us into being separated from God because we allow ourselves to be taken
over by our said passions and desires. God wants all of us, even the side of us
that wants to defeat foes and fight enemies and attain personal gains because
of it. He wants that side of us too, because that side is the very
thing that will cause us to lose everything that we call ourselves working for.
·
Some women lose their husbands in marriage
because of the unwillingness to submit to the natural order that God has
designed for marriage. They want to compete for individuality, emotional
control and consent and out of fear that a man could actually do what God has
called him to do; without realizing that their selfishness is the very thing
that’s truly keeping them away from being an individual in the first place.
·
Some men lose their wives in marriage because
they feel the need to conquer their spouse and to compete with the inconsistent
and often times unorthodox demands that her emotions need from time to time by
forcing her to steer every feeling she has, without loving and understanding what
her need really is and providing that for her.
·
Some people compete with themselves so much so
that there is no room for error and they fight internally to constrict and
bound themselves up, from themselves, at any given time for any given reason.
You see this in religion all of the time. Where a person is so devout that they
will mutilate themselves in more ways than one so that they can have mastery over
themselves.
The thing is that the list really
goes on but I pray that you really grasp the concept I’m showing you today, and
that’s this:
Competition has, can, and will with no resolute or conformity, take
your living self away from you and dare you to try and take it back.
Don’t live in competition with
anybody, including you.
The road is so lonely, that after
you achieve everything you set yourself after, you’ll now spend the rest of
your life trying to scramble together the pieces of a broken life while you try
to figure out how you could have possibly lost everything though you’ve
attained everything.
Having everything and yet possessing nothing.
That’s the harsh reality of
letting competition fuel your life.
I challenge you to allow God to be
your Vindicator, your Ambassador, your Beneficiary, your Confidant, your
Captain, your Truth, your Source, your Supply and most importantly, your
Motivation.
Doing this is as easy as asking
Him to forgive you for letting your life turn in opposition to His guidance,
because I feel that if you’re honest enough with yourself, you’ll recognize
that God has been trying to get ahold of you for quite some time now.
The bible says not to harden your heart, but to literally allow Him to
speak to you and to let His word judge your heart so that you could be free
from condemnation and alive to live and move and have your total being in Him.
That’s the beauty of all of this!
His word is not attempting to separate you, hurt you or condemn you! His word
is there so that we could have a road map to lead us back to His presence when
we go astray. It’s also there to give us a play by play text of how we are to
live out our lives now that we’ve given up on competition.
Literally I mean that God has
developed a way to replace the life we used to live so that we could remain
free from the things that so easily entangles us and traps us, keeping us away
from a relationship with Him.
Don’t just take my word for anything, I encourage you to go and hit the
texts in scripture and see if I’m right about what His word says concerning
what it takes to really be a winner in this life and then judge yourself where
you’re at, in honesty, and really answer the question:
Who am I, and Why am I here?
Marcus C. Hollinger
