Envy (Part 2)
Good Morning,
Some people have a bigger dose than others, but it seems that everyone possesses some measure of envy. When someone sees another person with something they do not have, they want it. The feeling is not just covetousness, it is an evil intention; it is covetousness with a dose of spitefulness; it is a desire for something with malice attached.
Envy is a rotten desire deep inside the soul. Children are envious of those who get more attention from the teacher or seem to be more popular on the playground. What we do with that envy determines what it becomes.
We all have a little jealousy, or a little covetousness of the nicer hair or better athletic ability, or perhaps for the person who seems to get good grades all of the time. Who does not want a little more of any of those things? How we respond to those childhood feelings seems to be like how a seed develops in nature. Where I grew up, you can find many grapevines and wild apple trees in the forest, but none of them are to be desired, because they have not been tended. The vines are tangled, the tree branches are broken, and the fruit is small and often undesirable. The garden of one who has been diligent in its care, with vines and branches trimmed and pruned regularly, will yield fruit that grows bigger and sweeter. With enough attention and cultivation, one can yield really good fruit from the same kind of plants that barely yield fruit in the woods.
So is envy.
When a child feels a little jealousy, a little envy, or a little covetousness, they dwell upon it and nurture it; this cultivates and fertilizes the soil in which envy grows.
While many teenagers turn to their own area of skill, there are some who seem to embrace envy, jealousy, and covetousness. While many children accept that they are all different from one another and that each one has their own area of importance, some seem to glory in their struggle, while the bitterness of soul begins to grow in their heart, growing from childhood jealousy to teenage covetousness and then to mature and thriving envy coated with evil and maliciousness.
Proverbs 14:30 “…envy the rottenness of the bones.”
The covetous person sees another person’s happy marriage, and they begin to despise those people. They see another person’s business prosper, and their anger begins to smolder. They see another person who is simply happy, with very little reason to be but happy nonetheless and often possessing less than the one who is envious, and it nurtures the corruption within.
Proverbs 27:4 “Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?”
Do you want to know where an unbelievable action came from? It often stems from the well-trimmed garden of envy. Where does vengeful behavior begins? You will often see it in the heart of one who hates another for possessing “life” when they themselves possess emptiness. The world is surprised at the hateful deeds towards those who loved the person, yet upon close examination, they find there is an unsatisfied void, a cavern of unfulfilled expectations.
This seems to be the reason that Jesus was hated and why the brothers of Joseph sold him.
Matthew 27:18 “For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.”
Acts 7:9 “And the patriarchs, moved with envy, sold Joseph into Egypt: but God was with him,”
The putrid fruit of the soulless heart of envy caused the Jews to kill Stephen.
Acts 17:5 “But the Jews which believed not, moved with envy, took unto them certain lewd fellows of the baser sort, and gathered a company, and set all the city on an uproar, and assaulted the house of Jason, and sought to bring them out to the people.”
Notice that murder (and many other terrible actions) is the companion of envy. Envy is no significant emotion, and worst of all, it seems to multiply with time as devil grass in the lawn.
Romans 1:29 “Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,”
Before we are too harsh on others, may we remember that we have all had the roots and perhaps the beginning of envy in our lives, but by the grace of God, we were delivered. Do not forget that we all have had some of our own envy (probably more than once). No one is a superior saint.
Titus 3:3 “For we ourselves also were sometimes foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving divers lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another.”
Pastor