Love is patient and kind; love does
not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own
way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but
rejoices with the truth. Love bears all
things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. I Corinthians 13:4-7
Today let’s
look at “love does not envy”. It occurs
to me that we don’t hear many messages preached on envy. Not too many books on this topic and I rarely
hear myself or others confess this particular sin. And yet, it is a major problem among those of
us who are alive. Major. If we dig down to discover root causes of
many other sins, we often find envy lurking there.
Think about
it – have you gossiped recently? Or
criticized someone? Or treated someone
unkindly? Resented a friend or
complained about something you did not have?
Is there envy underneath those things?
Could it be that we covet what someone else has - be it
a lovely home or thoughtful husband or successful children – and that
causes us to react in unloving ways to someone…..as if we can somehow even the
score?
Love does
not envy. Instead, love rejoices over
God’s blessings to others and trusts that He is doing good to us, as well. Rejecting envy requires that we embrace
certain truths about God. First, that it is HE who gives good gifts. Good things do not come as a result of
self-effort but rather are from His hand.
He determines who has what. And
we need to settle that in our hearts.
Next we need to know beyond a shadow of a doubt that He is always good
in what He does. Recipients of His gifts
may distort and misuse His gifts but He is always loving in His giving. And in
His withholding. Psalm 84:11 tells us …no
good thing does He withhold from those who walk uprightly. If we long for something that someone
else has and wonder why we can’t have it, too, God wants us to trust Him. He does not have a quota on blessings. He is not going to run out of resources and
He does not limit us to some certain amount of His goodness. If we don’t have something we are longing
for, let’s trust Him. Keep asking and
listening and keep on trusting. If His
answer is “wait”, then trust His timing.
If His answer is “yes”, then rejoice and know that He blesses us so that
we can be a blessing to others. And if
His answer is “no”, then choose to trust Him rather than to envy others. He is good.
All the time.