"Judging by the wrong standards"

(Below are excerpts from the book "What is a Healthy Church Member?" by Thabiti M. Anyabwile. Great reading. - che)

Another thing that often misguides Christians when it comes to spiritual group is the tendency to judge our well-being by comparing ourselves to others. Many Christians are relativists in this way. The Pharisee was proud before God that he "was not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector."...

Jonathan Edwards's eighth resolution is a better approach. Edwards wrote:

"RESOLVED, To act, in all respects, both speaking and doing, as if nobody had been so vile as I, and as if I had committed the same sins, or had the same infirmities or failings, as others, and that I will let the knowledge of their failings promote nothing but shame in myself, and prove only an occasion of my confessing my own sins and misery to God." (Source: The Works of Jonathan Edwards, vol. 1 (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1998),Lxii.)

If we're focusing on others in an attempt to justify ourselves before God or to "exalt ourselves" as "giants of the faith," we will not only not grow as we ought, but we will also delude ourselves into thinking we're better than we are. And we may be sure that God will humble us. So it is better to humble ourselves and trust in the grace of God than to be opposed by God because of pride (James 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:5)