Joan Boney ... apostle/prophet
If we desire to be as another person in any way, we enter into very serious danger ... envy ...
You might envy a person a possession ... or envy physical appearance of another.
Or you might envy a quality another person has ...
Either way envy can open doors for devils "and every evil work."
I suspect each of us have desired to look like someone else ... or to be as smart as someone else ... to be as talented as someone else ...
But we must take very careful stock of ourselves ...for the Bible tells us it is not wise to measure ourselves by another person nor to compare ourselves to another person.
2 Corinthians 10:12 For we dare not make ourselves of the number, or compare ourselves with some that commend themselves: but they measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
Envy is defined as:
to desire to have a quality, possession, or other desirable attribute belonging to another.
Many years ago, a woman came to me at the church I was attending and said to me, "I want to be like you are." I was shocked. It never occurred to me that anyone would want to be a minister.
To want to be like another person is a form of envy ...
I've had multiple people say to me, "I could never do the work you do ... I could never write these exhortations you write." (Whether these individuals know it or not, envy is in their hearts.)
Each of us who belong to God are created by HIM in the image HE gives to us with the gifts HE gives to us for the church.
We must not have in our hearts a desire to do as another person does.
Instead we come to position of trying to do that which God has given us ...
To compare ourselves to another is to open doors for devil to move into our lives and to operate through us.
Instead, we are told the following ...
1 Peter 4:11 If any man speak, let him speak as the oracles of God; if any man minister, let him do it as of the ability which God giveth: that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom be praise and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.
We must firmly deal with this temptation.
James 3 ... 14 But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth. 15 This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. 16 For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
There are people who think they must know everything. I am acquainted with a woman who is not born again who can't stand it to think she doesn't know something so she fakes things to try to cover up not knowing. But I know she is faking. And I suspect others know she is faking.
I can't spell. I don't care that I can't spell. I can't do even simple numbers. I don't care.
What is important is that I'm not trying to be as anyone else. God has brought me to this point in time and in experience.
We can lose everything by continuing in trying to be something or someone else.
Phil. 2 ... 5 Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:6 Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God:7 But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:8 And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. 9 Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him,