Not all Envy is Bad But Motive is Vital
Envy can motivate you to pursue success in life or be a positive motivation to make you do something worthwhile in your life. Solomon wrote that he “observed that most people are motivated to success because they envy their neighbours. But this, too, is meaningless— like chasing the wind” (Ecclesiastes 4: 4 NLT).
In Philippians 2:3 Paul warns us as servants of the Lord: Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. The fact is, the more we aim at personal success, the less secure we become. We are threatened by the possibility that someone else may succeed before we do.
This creates an atmosphere for jealousy and envy to thrive. Instead, we ought to be motivated less and less by personal ambition but to simply please the Lord. Even in times of frustration or failure, we should turn our focus from trying to solve the problem to maintaining an attitude that is pleasing to the Lord.
As servants of Christ, we will experience no competition or envy but we would strive to please our Lord who was utterly devoted to His Father’s will, honour, praise and glory and received no recognition from men (see John 5:30-31).
For we must all appear and be revealed as we are before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive his pay according to what he has done in the body, whether good or evil considering what his purpose and motive have been, and what he has achieved, been busy with, and given himself and his attention to accomplishing (2 Corinthians 5:10 AMP).
Again, according to his letter to the Philippians, Paul heard that some preached Christ out of rivalry and jealousy of him; he said he was delighted that the gospel was being preached, whatever the motives of those preaching it. He said he would go anywhere to tell anyone what God had done in Christ.
Let me add that I observed this spirit of envy and jealousy first and foremost in my own life and some of the main things I pray every day to be delivered from are: pride, lust and envy. Pride is the first sin of in most of us, as we imitate our parents Adam and Eve. Lust is probably second. But high on the list of the sins of our human race is envy, which could possibly be seen as a subsection of pride.
We hate to see our fellow human beings having any sort of success. For instance, it’s been noted that the British are very proud people and this pride results in envy and jealousy. From envy, it is often a short step to servility.
Whereas the Americans think of themselves as individuals created in the image of God. They resent being servants, and when given the opportunity to become their own masters, they seize it with enthusiasm and never look back.
Many people of different backgrounds have been elevated to positions of higher responsibility in areas of business, academia, politics, law and other professions because they knew in America you can compete effectively once given the opportunity.
But in some or even many black circles, pursuing learning is called acting white, and this (needless to say) is a criticism of the black person trying to be an excellent student. Apparently, envy seems to be at work here when Black people criticize their fellow Blacks for “acting white.”
If some Black person has acknowledged a real objective standard of intellectual excellence, and has bravely attempted to come up to that standard by his or her pursuit of learning; instead of saying, “You go guy or girl, and encouraging this admirable attempt, much of the black community instead mocks the person as having deserted his people.
He is “acting white” This is defined as envy which is “How dare you try to be smarter and better than the rest of us? You are a traitor to your race, you are acting white. We are going to put you down with the rest of us.” This is envy. It might be unconscious envy but it is still the sin of envy.
What about God’s Jealousy?
This is possibly the one thing about God of the Bible that the world hates most. We are told that the Lord is a jealous God (Exodus 34:14). The Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God (Deuteronomy 4:24).
Do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously?”(James 4:5). God doesn’t envy anybody or anything, because it’s all His anyway – but He is jealous. Jealousy is an appropriate emotion for God, even if we might not think so at first.
I heard a story of how Oprah Winfrey listened to the preacher in a Baptist church when she was around twenty-eight years old. The preacher was speaking about the omniscience, omnipresence and omnipotence of God. Oprah was apparently enthralled – until he quoted Exodus 34: 14, saying that God is a jealous God. She said ‘I was caught up in the rapture of that moment; until he said “jealous.”
She said it made her realize that ‘God is jealous of me’. She then added, “Something about that didn’t feel right in my spirit because I believe that God is love.”
It would have been appropriate for Oprah to know that God should be jealous for His people when they follow other gods. He is jealous for His name, His reputation, His people, and His world. These are not popular attributes of God, but we need to understand them if we are to gain a proper perspective of Who He is.
Godly Jealousy
The apostle Paul faced opposition wherever he went – human opposition, largely Jewish in origin, and the satanic opposition that was behind the human element. Both were due to jealousy, for both the Jews and Satan were jealous of losing followers.
In Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he describes godly jealousy to believers who he thought had been deceived by false apostles using the serpent’s cunning, and their minds somehow be led astray from their sincere and pure devotion to Christ (see Galatians 1:6-9).
It is clear from Paul’s teaching in Colossians and other letters, notably Galatians and Romans, that Christianity is not about giving up abstaining from legitimate bodily pleasures like food but is about giving up the attitudes and practices that displease God, such as pride, lust, envy, quarrelling, rivalry and prejudice. It means living consistently in Christ every day of your life.
Jude also focuses on the characters of false teachers and their similarity to the characters of three people in the Old Testament. He starts with Cain, who killed his brother out of jealousy. He tells the readers that the false teachers are motivated in part by jealousy, just like Cain, and so are bound to affect those who listen.
Look into the Mirror-The Word of God
James says that the Bible is like a mirror that can show us what we are like through the people we read about (James 1:23). We can compare ourselves with Bible characters and ask whether we would have behaved in the same way. We are envious of others because the more you have, the more you want, and the more you envy those who have got more. James says,
But if you have bitter jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry, selfish ambition) in your hearts, do not pride yourselves on it and thus be in defiance of and false to the Truth…. For wherever there is jealousy (envy) and contention (rivalry and selfish ambition), there will also be confusion (unrest, disharmony, rebellion) and all sorts of evil and vile practices (James 3:14 AMP).
James goes on to tell us that strife, discord feuds, conflicts quarrels and fightings originate and arise from our sensual desires that are ever warring in our bodily members. You are jealous and covet what others have and your desires go unfulfilled; so you become murderers.
To hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned. You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek, so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask. Or you do ask God for them and yet fail to receive because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is when you get what you desire to spend it in sensual pleasures (James 4:1-3 AMP).
Like it or not, then, we all have envy and jealousy from time to time. But jealousy is envy that we failed to keep under control – as when the dam bursts, the volcano erupts, the tongue becomes the fire of hell (James 3: 6).
Alexander Solzhenitsyn, who suffered decades of horrendous hardship as a political exile in the Siberian prison system known as the “gulag” wrote in the Gulag Archipelago:
Don’t be afraid of misfortune and do not yearn after happiness. It is, after all, the same. The bitter doesn’t last forever, and the sweet never fills the cup to overflowing. It is enough if you don’t freeze in the cold, and if hunger and thirst don’t claw at your sides.
If your back isn’t broken, if your feet can walk, if both arms work, if both eyes can see, and if both ears can hear, then whom should you envy? And why? Our envy of others devours us most of all. Rub your eyes and purify your heart and prize above all else in the world those who love you and wish you well.
Love endures long and is patient and kind; love never is envious nor boils over with jealousy, is not boastful or vainglorious, does not display itself haughtily (1 Corinthians 13: 4).
Don’t let Satan rob you of this privilege of loving others and wishing them well. Don’t give him a chance. Learn to recognize envy and jealousy in yourself as soon as possible, and then fear it. Fear jealousy and envy as you would fear being trapped by a violent bear. Run from it. When you see it in yourself, repent, be honest with God and do all you can to resist it.
