All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away.
- Isaiah 64:6
When you enter the land the Lord your God is giving you and have taken possession of it and settled in it, and you say, “Let us set a king over us like all the nations around us,” be sure to appoint over you a king the Lord your God chooses. He must be from among your fellow Israelites. Do not place a foreigner over you, one who is not an Israelite. The king, moreover, must not acquire great numbers of horses for himself or make the people return to Egypt to get more of them, for the Lord has told you, “You are not to go back that way again.” He must not take many wives, or his heart will be led astray. He must not accumulate large amounts of silver and gold.
When he takes the throne of his kingdom, he is to write for himself on a scroll a copy of this law, taken from that of the Levitical priests. It is to be with him, and he is to read it all the days of his life so that he may learn to revere the Lord his God and follow carefully all the words of this law and these decrees and not consider himself better than his fellow Israelites and turn from the law to the right or to the left. Then he and his descendants will reign a long time over his kingdom in Israel.
- Deuteronomy 17:14-20
A good name is better than fine perfume,
and the day of death better than the day of birth.
It is better to go to a house of mourning
than to go to a house of feasting,
for death is the destiny of everyone;
the living should take this to heart.
Frustration is better than laughter,
because a sad face is good for the heart.
The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning,
but the heart of fools is in the house of pleasure.
It is better to heed the rebuke of a wise person
than to listen to the song of fools.
Like the crackling of thorns under the pot,
so is the laughter of fools.
This too is meaningless.
- Ecclesiastes 7:1-6
I have told this joke before.
Two Hikers are walking through the forest. They come into the presence of a large mother bear. The mother bear charges, and the two hikers turn and run. One hiker turns to the other hiker and says, “I took the wilderness survivor’s course. Why are we running? We cannot outrun a bear.” The other hiker said, “All I have to do is outrun you.”
That ‘comparison’ might be funny as a joke, but not in real life.
The key is that we often think life is all about a little personal improvement, but the improvement that we think we can make is like filthy rags.
Any comparison falls short of God’s glory. Being better than the other guy? It won’t work. Being good enough to get into Heaven? Nope, that is definitely a no go.
And even among true Christians, they can say the wrong thing. My wife quit saying the following statement late in her life. “Christians are like anybody. They sin, but they should sin less.” So, let’s be generous in my direction. I have ten sins that I do each day, a lot more, but I did not say how generous. Let’s say that one is fairly easy to correct. So, now I am sinning 10 percent less than I used to sin. I did it all on my own. I did not need God. And I met the criteria that my wife’s statement said.
We need to get closer to God. God is the only one with the power to save us. We do that by believing and trusting in Jesus with everything. Will we stumble? Sure, but God already forgot that one. It is important for us to confess our sin, so that we can renounce it and ask God for the power to repent of the sin.
So, let’s say we are watching a NASCAR race and 40 of the 43 cars in the race are still running on the last lap, but every car suddenly runs out of gas. They would probably give the race to the one that was in the lead. But God does not do that. We are either washed in the blood of the Lamb or we are not.
In life, we might have comparisons. The photo is a photo of two mahi mahi filets. One of the filets was from a fish caught near Vietnam. The other filet was from a fish that was caught near Ecuador. Since they go into deep water in Ecuador to lay their eggs, they are not the same. The Ecuador fish is higher in the right kinds of Omega-3. It is healthier for you. So, was it better? I don’t know. After I made a Citrus Vinaigrette and glazed the fish, I lost my marker on which one was which. They both tasted good.
But the first Scripture above shows that nothing we do makes us “better”. Doing God’s Will is a great thing to do, and there will be a reward for that, but only if we are saved. We can never do enough good to be “good” or even “better” than the other guy. It might work with to fish filets, but God knows those that are in His book of Life.
I put the other two Scriptures together. In the Mosaic Law, God spoke through Moses to tell the people exactly what would happen. They would ask for a king. And then the “king” was told by God through Moses to not have too many wives, to not accumulate too much gold and silver.
And then after Solomon did all those things God said not to do, he writes Ecclesiastes to question why someone who is so wise could be that foolish.
Can we have more than someone else? Sure, but when we go before the Lord at the Final Judgment, the one with the most toys does not win. But if our desire is Jesus and we live our lives according to that desire, now that might indicate that our name is written in God’s Book of Life.
Soli Deo Gloria. Only to God be the Glory.
Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley 
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