Walking with the Wise #501: Jealousy

“Anger is cruel, and wrath is like a flood,
 

but jealousy is even more dangerous.” 

—Proverbs 27:4 (NLT) 

 Jealousy is God’s creation. It is found within Him, and one of the names by which He is known:

“…for you shall worship no other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God”—Exodus 34:14.

God is jealous, and His jealousy is powerful like fire: “For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God”—Deuteronomy 4:24. Unlike the jealousy we experience, His is completely pure, holy, and without prejudice. But, His jealousy is for us. In a mystery we may never fully know, He longs for us and He gets jealous whenever we turn to find our satisfaction in anything that is not of Him. David Crowder’s song, “How He Loves” captures God’s holy jealousy for us:

“He is jealous for me,
 Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
 Bending beneath the weight of His wind and mercy.
 When all of a sudden,
 I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
 And I realize just how beautiful You are,
 And how great Your affections are for me.

 And oh, how He loves us, oh, 
Oh, how He loves us, How He loves us all”

He loves us in more incredible ways then we are even capable of understanding. He is jealous, therefore, whenever we put something or someone on the throne of our hearts that was made only for Him. Being made in His image, we also experience jealousy. But, unlike Him, our jealousy is not always pure, holy, and without prejudice. Like everything else in all creation, jealousy too has been marred by the devastating effects of the Fall, rendering jealousy sometimes good (2 Corinthians 11:12), but more often, bad (Romans 13:13, 1 Corinthians 3:3; 2 Corinthians 12:20; Galatians 5:20; James 3:14-18). It is powerful, more powerful than anger and wrath, and can destroy lives, as Solomon wrote:

“Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord”—Song of Solomon 8:6.

Knowing the untamed power of jealousy, we must learn to guard against it, recognize it when we see it in others, and remember that God’s holy jealousy burns to bring us to Himself.

Guarding against jealousy involves trust, communication, and satisfaction in what we have. As I already mentioned, jealousy can have good facets and bad. For example, if I see another man make overtures to my wife, I am going to experience jealousy—which is good, because she is rightfully mine and I am hers. Any attempt to steal the affection due me is a tremendous insult and wrongfully intruding on that which we have covenanted to give to one another.

By the same token, if it is merely my perception that a man is making overtures because I have trust issues, then it is bad. There is no reason for it. My anger has no basis in reality, but only in my imagination, and that is the type of jealousy that runs rampant and is disastrous to anyone toward whom it is directed.

There is another sense in which jealousy can be dealt with by realizing what you have and being satisfied in it. Whenever I see someone blessed materially, or with some type of success, honor, or prestige, I am not to be jealous of their blessing—instead, I must find satisfaction in what God has given me. One man well might have more talent, but that doesn’t mean I am any less a man. It doesn’t mean that God loves me any less. God’s favor is not upon those who are trying to earn His favor; it has already been bestowed upon us in Christ. We stay in that favor and experience it by doing what we were made to be and do.

Nor should we be jealous of the honors of men, which is incomplete and biased. As Christians, we do not live for the honors of men, but for the honor and glory of God, who alone knows the heart, and will honor us for all that we have done.Maybe not in the here and now, but definitely in the age to come, and for that we wait and entrust ourselves to Him.

Jealousy, by nature, becomes a roaring flame whenever trust or satisfaction is lacking. The same can be said of jealousy whenever it enters into the imagination, or when we project our emotional issues upon another person (for example, if we have been unfaithful, we are going to perceive others as unfaithful [Titus 1:15]. The only safe bet is to continually lay ourselves before the Lord, ask Him to reveal and purify our feelings and motives. Secondarily, we commit ourselves to the Lord, reminded that the jealousies we experience find their greatest purity in Him. He is jealous for us. He loves us and this in spite of ourselves. Rebels born on the wrong side of enemy lines, He still loves us with a holy jealousy—deeply desiring to have a relationship with us.

May we each forsake jealousy, and surrender ourselves to Him who loves us more than words could ever communicate, for His glory and our joy. Amen.