Speaker 1: 0:01

Welcome to the Daily Blade. The Word of God is described as the sword of the Spirit, the primary spiritual weapon in the Christian's armor against the forces of evil. Your hosts are Joby Martin and Kyle Thompson, and they stand ready to equip men for the fight. Let's sharpen up.

Speaker 2: 0:19

Back to Matthew, chapter 25. I'm not going to read the text because we've already read it. But the five-talent guy. What he does is he immediately goes and does with the property what he thinks his master would want him to do with the property. He doubles the money. And then he comes to the master and he says see, hear, what is yours. You gave me the five talents and I, and risked it all and I made five talents more. And then what he is going to receive from the master is he is going to receive this blessing. And the blessing is this well done, good and faithful servant. But what I really want to pay attention to here I guess I will read some After he says well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little. I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.

Speaker 2: 1:06

Then the next verse, verse 22, says and he also, who had received the two talents, came forward saying master, you delivered to me two talents here. I have made two talents more. Now here's what I want you to see. First of all, the five-talent guy and the two-talent guy. They both first start with an attitude of gratitude. They don't start with look what I have done for you. What they start with, the first thing out of their mouth is look what you did for me, God Master. I took what you gave me. You gave me five talents. I don't think I deserved it. I don't know what I did to earn it. You gave me two talents. I'm not sure why you chose me, but you chose me and I took what you gave to me. And look here and it doesn't mean like, look here. It means more, like here you go, I have doubled this money for you.

Speaker 2: 1:59

Now, I actually think one of the key heroes in this parable, in this story, is the two-talent guy, and the reason I say that is this is that the two-talent man spent zero time being paralyzed by the trap of comparison. Because comparison is that Comparison is a trap. Comparison is a lose-lose proposition, Because when we compare the reason I call it lose-lose is when we compare then there is no positive outcome. When we compare ourselves to others, essentially it's an affront against the Almighty God. Essentially, when we compare ourselves to our brother-in-law, who's an idiot, but he just got that huge pay raise, what we're doing is we're putting our finger in the chest of God and saying, God, you didn't do this right. You gave him too much and you gave me not enough.

Speaker 2: 2:50

You see, comparison is a lose-lose proposition, because only one of two things can result when we compare ourselves to others, whether it's other men we work with other families to people that we see online, with other families to people that we see online. Here's the problem is that we can either be built up with pride because we compare ourselves to others and we feel too good about ourselves. We say I'm smarter than them, I'm better looking than them, I have more money than them, I'm more successful than them, I'm a better athlete than them, and we begin to think too highly of ourselves because we compare ourselves to other people. That's called pride, and it's the greatest of all sins. It's actually the sin that got Satan kicked out of heaven pride.

Speaker 2: 3:39

The other side of the coin, though, is sometimes we compare ourselves to other people and we get beaten down with condemnation and we think we're not enough and we don't have what it takes, and the language of condemnation is one of the primary tools of the enemy to paralyze the man of God. You see, condemnation is a building term, and it means unfit for use, and you begin to look at that guy in your Sunday school class, that guy in your disciple group, that guy from church, that guy with all the money, that guy with a beautiful family, and you think that you will never live up to what that person has, and you may not. But, brother, God has not necessarily called you to live up to what that other man is doing. That God has called and created you to be the you that he came up with. That other man is doing. That God has called and created you to be the you that he came up with. That's you, and so that can lead to condemnation, and my Bible says that, therefore, now there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. You see, the problem with comparison is that we always compare what we know about ourselves to what we don't know to other people. We compare our B-roll with somebody else's highlight reel, and the fact that we are carrying around little comparison guides in our pocket every day of our life is damning us to hell. You see, you begin to scroll through Instagram and you compare your unfiltered life to everybody else's filtered life. Trust me, that person that you see on Instagram, it's not their actual life.

Speaker 2: 5:05

I live at the beach, I live in Jacksonville Beach, Florida, and I can't tell you the number of families that I see post pictures on Instagram and they are at the beach and the picture looks perfect. I don't know if you go to the beach much, but have you ever seen a happy family at the beach? No, nobody's happy. The if you go to the beach much, but have you ever seen a happy family at the beach? No, nobody's happy. The dad's just sitting his butt on the beach trying to drink a cold beer and relax. Mama's freaked out by the kids. The Yankees are feeding the seagulls and making everybody miserable. The kids have sand all over them, they're crying, but what do they do? Right before they leave? To go, get back into their car, to go home, they get the family together and for one second they can get everybody to smile and for that micro second, their day was great, and that's the picture that they post online.

Speaker 2: 5:48

Here's what I want to encourage you with. You may be a five-talent guy, you may be a two-talent guy, but don't miss this. Do not compare yourself to one another. Why? Because God does not compare you to one another. God gives the exact same blessing or reward to the five-talent guy and to the two-talent guy, because it was not the amount of money that those men made, it was. Were they faithful with what God had given them?

Speaker 1: 6:21

Thank you for listening to today's episode Before you go. If you want to help equip other men for the fight, share this podcast around and leave us a five-star rating and review. Stay sharp.