Advice For The Christian Girl

Resisting The Spirit Of Envy And Jealousy

Resisting The Spirit Of Envy And Jealousy
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To have love. Love conquers all and love is God. You can't have love and envy at the same time. You have one of the other and only one is from God and one is from the enemy.

The enemy causes us to envy so we can separate ourselves from God. The enemy wants us to envy so we aren't grateful so we are bitter and hold unto unforgiveness and hatred. He wants us not to fulfil the great command to love one another (John 13:34) because if we continue to serve God but don't have any love what we are doing is worthless. After all, it's not from a place of purity (1 Corinthians 13:3).

So what's a way to resist the spirit of envy?

This is something I've been practising. God taught me and showed me that the enemy will seek to cause me to envy others. He will do his best to see me stop focusing on God but instead look at my surroundings and remain in bitterness. And one way God taught me as a defence is to pray for those that the enemy will seek for me to envy. When we sense that feeling of envy rising, that feeling that says "Look at her, or why does she get that? Or reminds me of how she has something I don't."

We should instead begin to pray for that very person. We should declare scripture and truth over their lives, bless them for success, pray for their future and most importantly, ask God to keep them on the right path and to do His will on the earth.

It's prayers like these that loosen the grip of jealousy, envy and comparison in our lives. We shouldn't sulk and begin to go down a pit of self-pity and even anger for something we want that someone has or if someone seems to be where we want to be. We shouldn't brush that feeling off either because when we start having thought patterns like that, we allow the enemy to come in and begin planting seeds of anger, insecurity, ungratefulness, hatred, selfishness and envy in our hearts. When these seeds are planted, slowly by slowly we will begin heading in the wrong direction. When we sense that insecurity of when someone has what we want or what we wish we had, we should recognise that feeling and hold it. We hold it and hold it captive in obedience to Christ. We decide to not listen to the voice of the enemy and how we feel but to follow the word and direction of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit will never bring us to anything that isn't good fruit. When we stay in insecurity we aren't following the direction of the Holy Spirit but rather allowing the enemy to mislead us. What God does for others should bring us joy because He does give good gifts and talents for fun but the sake of the kingdom. We are all kingdom warriors and all daughters of the Most High and as children of God, we should be excited to see our fellow members excelling in what God has given them.

When I pray for the success of others, my mind is clearer and my heart is cleaner. I feel more joyful because I stand on the fact that God sees me.

Genesis 37
ESV
37 Jacob lived in the land of his father's sojournings, in the land of Canaan.
2 These are the generations of Jacob.
Joseph, being seventeen years old, was pasturing the flock with his brothers. He was a boy with the sons of Bilhah and Zilpah, his father's wives. And Joseph brought a bad report of them to their father. 3 Now Israel loved Joseph more than any other of his sons, because he was the son of his old age. And he made him a robe of many colours. 4 But when his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, they hated him and could not speak peacefully to him.

5 Now Joseph had a dream, and when he told it to his brothers they hated him even more. 6 He said to them, "Hear this dream that I have dreamed: 7 Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf." 8 His brothers said to him, "Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?" So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words.

9 Then he dreamed another dream and told it to his brothers and said, "Behold, I have dreamed another dream. Behold, the sun, the moon, and eleven stars were bowing down to me." 10 But when he told it to his father and to his brothers, his father rebuked him and said to him, "What is this dream that you have dreamed? Shall I and your mother and your brothers indeed come to bow ourselves to the ground before you?" 11 And his brothers were jealous of him, but his father kept the saying in mind.

Now note something, Jospeh brothers were able to interpret Joseph's dreams easily. They understand what the symbols such as the moon, stars, wheat etc all meant and they understood the message.

Now in verse

He said to them, "Hear this dream that I have dreamed: 7 Behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and behold, my sheaf arose and stood upright. And behold, your sheaves gathered around it and bowed down to my sheaf."

Who would understand this dream to do anything with reign and rule? His brothers and father all had that grace to interpret dreams yet they didn't even realise they had that grace. Their hatred and Jealousy blinded them to a point where they couldn't see what God placed in them.

This same grace of dream interpretation is what Joseph had but because He was still young, He still needed a bit of time but His brothers were older. Imagine if Jospeh brothers did not let jealousy get to them?

Sometimes we're so blinded with jealousy, insecurity, comparison and envy that we just like Jospeh brothers will fail to see the grace God has given to us and what He can also do through us.