Godly Jealousy

Nearly everyone has experienced the "Green-Eyed Monster" we call jealousy.  It is something we find irritating in others even as it may be raising up its ugly head in ourselves.  It can be very dangerous.  Many a relationship has been smothered to death by it metaphorically and some people have killed others because of it in actual reality.  Rarely is jealousy seen as a good thing.

Rarely, but not never.  Most women find it sweet when their husbands of many years still have just a tinge of jealousy for them, that boyish yearning to be the center of her attention.  Too much and its a total turn off, but just a bit can be attractive in a mate.  And, for most men, a little smigin of jealousy from their wives tends to feed that omnipresent male ego, while too much gets the Bubba in them a bit ranckered.

Jealousy, rightly held, is actually not just a good thing, but a God thing.  While it may surprise you to hear this, "For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God" (Deut 4:24).  God is jealous for his children, not in an over-bearing lover's kind of jealousy but that of a loving parent.

As a parent, haven't you found yourself jealously guarding your children from attractions of the wrong sort?  Didn't you worry over the kinds of friends they might choose or the influencers they may allow into their lives?  Hasn't it been your desire that they choose to continue in the faith in which you raised them?  Don't you want them to always hold you dear in their hearts?  Don't you want, even your adult children, to be safe from the dangers of certain relationships?

God does too.  He doesn't want us following after false-gods who will leave us dry and empty.  He brissles at the thought of us being sucked in by the Evil One's lies and caught up in his snares.  He does not desire that any of us be lost from Him as only he can give us life, only He can offer us eternal love and blessing.

God wants you wholly unto himself because only he can make you whole, only he can save you, only he is God, only he is good.  To turn away from him, rises up his righteous jealousy because he knows that there is no life without him, no hope, no future.  Jus' Sayn.