Galatians 2:6 :

But from those who were reputed to be important (whatever they were, it makes no difference to me; God doesn’t show partiality to man)—they, I say, who were respected imparted nothing to me,

The pastor, the preacher, the pope, and the Bible teacher (including those crazy ones on the Internet) are all no more important than you are. They may be highly respected, but God just doesn’t see much difference.

Here’s what God thinks of our accomplishments:

Romans 3:10-18 :

“There is no one righteous;
no, not one.
There is no one who understands.
There is no one who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside.
They have together become unprofitable.
There is no one who does good,
no, not, so much as one.”
“Their throat is an open tomb.
With their tongues they have used deceit.”
“The poison of vipers is under their lips”;
“whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood.
Destruction and misery are in their ways.
The way of peace, they haven’t known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

When you raise the bar as high as God, we all look pretty bad. We can compare to each other, but that is really a waste of time when it is God who will be doing the judging.

I love how Paul was able to keep his focus on the truth and not be distracted by the fame of man. God set Paul out to operate this way. There would be nothing to stop him from focusing on Jesus and his mission to share the Gospel to you and I as Gentiles (and Jews too if they would listen to him because he loved them more than his own salvation – Romans 9:1-5).

We would do well today to recognize that Jesus is the only man who can be lifted up above the rest. No other man (or woman) should be allowed to come close or it is idolatry.