Sometimes we say:
“God has really blessed me.”
And perhaps He has.
We look at our home, our career, our children, our finances, our health, or some wonderful opportunity that came our way, and gratitude rises in our hearts.
There is nothing wrong with that.
We should recognize God’s goodness.
We should give thanks.
We should enjoy His gifts.
But there is a deeper question worth asking:
Would I still feel equally blessed if everyone around me received exactly what I received?
I know it may sound odd, but let me explain. That question can reveal something surprising about our hearts.
Because sometimes our sense of being blessed is not based entirely on what God has given us.
Sometimes it is based partly on what someone else does not have.
And even more subtly, sometimes we interpret the difference as evidence that God loves us in some special way.
When a Blessing Becomes Proof That God Loves Me
Imagine someone has prayed for years for a beautiful detached house.
Eventually, they receive it.
They walk through the rooms overwhelmed with gratitude.
They say:
“God loves me so much. Look what He has done for me.”
There is nothing wrong with recognizing God’s kindness in the gift.
But now imagine that over the next few years something happens.
Their friends buy beautiful houses too.
Their siblings do.
Their neighbors do.
Their coworkers do.
Even someone they thought was spiritually careless ends up with a bigger house.
And strangely, the original house no longer produces quite the same feeling.
Why?
The house has not changed.
The kitchen is still beautiful.
The backyard is still there.
The mortgage did not suddenly increase.
God did not take anything away.
Yet something feels different.
Perhaps what changed was not the blessing.
Perhaps what changed was its exclusivity.
Without realizing it, the person may not have simply been thinking:
“This reminds me that God loves me.”
They may have been thinking:
“This makes me feel especially loved by God because He gave me something He did not give them.”
Those are very different thoughts.
“If God Loves Everyone Like This, What Makes Me Special?”
This may be one of the most subtle forms of comparison.
We do not necessarily want to say:
“I am better than them.”
We may genuinely love other people.
But something inside us still wants God’s love to be demonstrated through preferential treatment.
We do not merely want to know:
“My Father loves me.”
Something in us wants:
“My Father loves me in a way everyone can see because He gave me something others do not have.”
Then someone else receives the same blessing.
And instead of thinking:
“How wonderful. God has been good to them too.”
something inside us feels deflated.
Why?
Because God’s goodness toward them somehow makes His goodness toward us feel less special.
But this reveals a misunderstanding of divine love.
God does not have to love someone else less in order to love me completely.
His love is not a scarce resource.
Blessing Should Not Require Someone Else’s Lack
A blessing can be something God graciously gives me.
But my sense of being blessed should not require somebody else to have less.
If I say:
“I am thankful God gave me this home,”
that is gratitude.
But if the home stops feeling like evidence of God’s love once everyone else has something comparable, then perhaps part of what I was enjoying was not merely God’s provision.
It was the contrast.
The difference.
The sense that:
“God did this for me.”
and somehow,
“He did not do it for them.”
That distinction made the blessing feel more personal.
But blessing does not require contrast.
God does not need to leave my neighbor without something in order to prove His love for me.
A Simple Test
Imagine God gives you exactly what you have been asking for.
The house.
The promotion.
The financial breakthrough.
The successful business.
The opportunity.
The healthy child.
The answered prayer.
Now imagine that He gives exactly the same thing to everyone around you.
Would you still be equally thankful?
Would your heart still say:
“Father, thank You. You have been so good to me.”
Or would something inside you say:
“Well, now it doesn’t feel as special.”
That second response is worth examining.
Because nothing has been taken from you.
Only the comparison disappeared.
The Ferrari Test
Imagine someone has always wanted a Ferrari.
One day, they finally get one.
They are ecstatic.
They thank God.
They feel unusually blessed.
Then imagine that the next morning every household on their street receives a Ferrari too.
Would they feel exactly the same about their car?
Mechanically, nothing changed.
Same engine.
Same design.
Same experience.
Same gift.
But psychologically, something may have changed dramatically.
Why?
Because perhaps the Ferrari was not only a gift to enjoy.
Perhaps it was also functioning as evidence:
“God has really favored me.”
Once everyone else receives one too, that evidence no longer seems unique.
And this is where blessing becomes entangled with identity.
Identity Is the Thread Running Through All of This
Why should another person receiving what I have make me feel less blessed?
Why should someone else’s promotion make mine feel less meaningful?
Why should another family’s prosperity make me question whether I am still especially favored?
Why should another person’s answered prayer diminish the emotional power of mine?
Because sometimes the blessing has become attached to identity.
It is no longer simply:
“God gave me something good.”
It has become:
“This proves something about who I am to God.”
And once that happens, another person receiving the same thing can feel strangely threatening.
Not because they took the gift from us.
But because they seem to have taken away the uniqueness we attached to it.
There Is No Competition for the Father’s Love
Think of children in a healthy family.
A child does not become less loved because the father loves another child.
The father’s embrace of one does not reduce the love available to another.
And as a child becomes secure in the father’s love, seeing a sibling loved should produce joy rather than insecurity.
The same maturity should grow in us.
I do not need your prayer to remain unanswered so mine can feel miraculous.
I do not need your children to struggle so mine can feel particularly blessed.
I do not need you to remain in an apartment so my detached house can testify that God loves me.
I do not need your business to struggle so my prosperity can feel like divine favor.
I do not need your sickness so my health can prove something about God’s affection toward me.
Your experiencing God’s goodness does not dilute His goodness toward me.
There is no competition for the Father’s affection.
We Can Spiritualize Comparison
This is where Christians have to be especially careful.
Instead of saying:
“I am doing better than them,”
we may say:
“Look how much God has blessed me.”
That language sounds spiritual.
And sometimes it truly is gratitude.
But other times, the spiritual language hides an ordinary human comparison.
My prosperity becomes evidence that God favors me.
And once we think that way, an uncomfortable implication appears.
If my large house proves that God loves me specially, what does the struggling Christian family’s apartment prove?
If my financial abundance proves God’s favor, what does another believer’s poverty mean?
If my children’s success proves I am blessed, what should the Christian parent of a struggling child conclude?
If my healing proves God loves me, what should the faithful believer undergoing years of illness conclude?
This is where prosperity-as-proof-of-love becomes dangerous.
Material Circumstances Are Not a Scoreboard of Divine Affection
Jesus said that God:
“causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.”
— Matthew 5:45
Material circumstances are simply not a reliable scoreboard of God’s love.
If they were, we would constantly be forced to determine God’s affection by looking sideways.
Who has more?
Who has less?
Whose prayer was answered?
Whose was not?
Who is healthy?
Who is sick?
Who prospered?
Who lost everything?
But the gospel gives us something far more secure.
The Cross Is the Measure of God’s Love
How do I know God loves me?
Ultimately, not because of my house.
Not because of my salary.
Not because of my health.
Not because my children are doing well.
Not because my career is succeeding.
Not because my prayers seem to receive better answers than someone else’s.
Paul points us somewhere infinitely more secure:
“God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
— Romans 5:8
The cross settles the question.
The measure of God’s love for me is Christ—not my circumstances.
I do not have to look sideways to discover how much God loves me.
I look to Christ.
And once that becomes settled, something wonderful happens.
I can celebrate your blessing without feeling that mine has been diminished.
If You Are Blessed, I Have Not Become Less Blessed
If my neighbor receives a beautiful house, my house has not become less of a gift.
If my colleague receives a promotion, my worth has not decreased.
If another person’s children succeed, mine have not become less precious.
If someone earns more than I do, God’s love toward me has not changed.
If someone receives the very answer to prayer that I once thought made my story special, my story has not become less precious to God.
God’s love for another person does not make His love for me less personal.
There is no scarcity of divine affection.
Hebrews 11 Destroys the Prosperity Scoreboard
Hebrews 11 makes it almost impossible to measure God’s love by circumstances.
Some believers:
conquered kingdoms.
Obtained promises.
Shut the mouths of lions.
Escaped the edge of the sword.
Became mighty in war.
Received the dead back to life.
Wonderful things happened.
But then the chapter continues.
Others were tortured.
Others were imprisoned.
Others were mocked.
Others wandered destitute.
Some lived in caves.
Some suffered greatly.
Some died.
And Scripture places all of them in the same chapter.
All are remembered for faith.
Think about what that means.
The person conquering kingdoms was not necessarily more loved by God than the person living in a cave.
The person receiving miraculous deliverance was not necessarily more favored than the person enduring suffering.
If we tried to construct a scoreboard of God’s love from Hebrews 11, it would collapse immediately.
Circumstances varied enormously.
God’s faithfulness did not.
Paul Gives Us a Better Way
Paul writes:
“If one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it.”
— 1 Corinthians 12:26
That is almost the opposite of comparative blessedness.
The flesh says:
“If you receive what I have, mine feels less special.”
Love says:
“If you are honored, I can rejoice with you.”
The flesh says:
“Your blessing diminishes mine.”
Grace says:
“Your blessing does not subtract from anything God has given me.”
Why can we live this way?
Because we are not competing for identity.
And we are certainly not competing for the Father’s love.
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