For those of you who are new to the series, we are uncovering God's meaning of Love for us and how we should Love each other. This is what we should be working towards and remember not to beat yourself up when you fall down and other people say to you...."Hey you fell down, aren't you a Christian?...YOU Should BE Perfect!!!" Remember a saint is just a sinner who fell down and got back up. Repent and keep going, while trying not to repeat the same offense and truly be sorry, but remember you cannot do it alone, you must have Jesus to help you to change any characteristics that are not becoming to the Body of Christ.
With that said, we will uncover the 3rd characteristic of Love: Love is NOT Jealous....It Does not Envy.
The definition of envy is to desire to deprive another of what he has. The definition of jealousy is to want the same sort of thing for itself (not necessarily taking it away from the other), but basically a resentful or painful desire for another’s advantages. The Greek word translated jealous comes from a root word which literally means...to boil. It is an inner boiling. seething, or steaming over another person's success, beauty, talent, intelligence, etc.
Exodus 20:17 – God expected that his people would not covet one another’s property. Coveting is a form of jealousy – to want what another man has. The Israelites were not to have a deep desire to want what their brethren had - jealousy was not to be part of the equation. Romans 13:8-10 shows where Paul’s description of loving a neighbor is to refrain from coveting. There are several examples of jealousy / coveting in the Bible and we all know what they led to: i.e [1] Cain and Abel. [2] Rachel and Leah with Jacob and [3] Joseph’s brothers.
It is for this reason that there should be no jealousy among us. Romans 12:15 shows that we are to be as one in our emotions with one another, if something great happens to one of your friends or family – it is not for you, or me, to think ill of the situation.
We are to rejoice with that individual – not wish it was us instead.
If a man truly loved his family or friends – there would be no jealousy to deal with because we’ve seen where jealousy leads – and it’s not normally good places. Jealousy has a tendency to sit and fester – but show its ugly head in a big way. When you are harboring jealousy within yourself toward someone else – here’s what will happen:
- It will ruin your relationship with that individual
- It might come out at some point causing strife and division and ruining the unity of the relationship
- Or even if it never comes out – it will eat away at you and make you miserable
If we find ourselves harboring jealousy – we just need to drop it and move on, because that is what love would do. There is no jealousy with love. Love is the exact opposite – love is caring and rejoicing with the one who has those advantages. Love looks past those feelings of jealousy, and focuses on feelings of patience and kindness toward your family and friends. Remember – without love – or we could say, with jealousy in your heart – your worship and service to God is like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal – it’s meaningless.
I love you all and in all your getting, get understanding. Love, Crecia
Side Note: There is a such thing as Positive Jealousy and this is demonstrated from God. Because God, Himself, is said to be a jealous God and you may wonder how is this different? First of all – it is God we’re talking about – who cannot sin, so we know it’s different, but what is His jealousy? His jealousy is that that the creation that He created for Him was going off to serve creations of their own imagination (other gods). Lets be sure we are not serving other gods or idols, basically not putting anything or anyone before him.
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