LOVE DOES NOT ENVY

Envy is when you want something that you’ve discovered from somewhere so that you can satisfy your needs.

Envy according to the world: you see something and you must have it.

Envy according to God: to see or not see something which will influence your soul to become a sinful soul.

Naturally our hearts don’t have envy in them, but what brings envy are our senses, this is the beginning of envy. Your senses will lead you to want what you’ve discovered from somewhere.

God gave us eyes and all the organs that we have so that we can glorify Him. But most of the time when our eyes look at things they start to push our hearts or our bodies to be attracted to that thing. From there our body will say “oh, it would be good for me to have this” simply because of what our eyes saw.
Example: shoes, you see someone with nice shoes and you think, “oh, I want those shoes”.

Our nose, you are in front of KFC and you start to smell yummy chicken and your heart feels that “oh, I want to eat that food”, and you are not necessarily hungry. But your stomach will tell you it needs something because your nose excepted something to come in.

Ears, you will hear someone say, “oh, Colleen bought something for Shari” and because your ears heard that you will start also to envy that thing.

With material things, you are free, if you have money and you like something you can get it. But we also have spiritual things which we can not buy or get from a shop. For example; God created someone pretty, for yourself you think you are not pretty and you to be something else. If you try to please yourself or others around you by going to get some help from somewhere it becomes a spiritual matter, because success belongs to God. Success is something everyone can see.

These types of envy are what comes from the body. Next we have the internal envy which comes from the heart. It’s like a feeling. When our eyes see something and then communicate with our hearts, our hearts will make our bodies to really feel that we need those things – at this point it is more like a temptation. It’s now up to you to decide whether or not you will continue to think about that thing or tell your body to stop. But your body still feels that I need this thing but you don’t have money to buy it or you know there’s no way you can get it, you have to know how to control your body otherwise envy will win the fight.

Most of the time envy wins the fight between our souls and our bodies when for example I don’t have this video, then an idea can come, “let me steal it, or let me hide it or break it so he/she can’t have it either”. Sometimes it will push me to hate someone, “oh she’s wearing that”. Especially more so when people might say, “oh, have you seen the way that so and so is dressing, she looks really nice”. And because you were envying what that person was wearing you can easily say no she doesn’t really look good, you can even hate her because you wanted what she has but you didn’t get it.

With our talking, for example someone can start to tell you how they appreciate such person, you can start to envy that person because you want to be the one who is appreciated. From there you can start to criticise that person and talk negatively or even think negatively. Then you’ll become a sinner.

Envy is different to desire. When you desire to have something you think, oh this is good, I desire to have it, it will be helpful for me. I can desire to be like Moses, but I cannot envy what Moses had, because when you envy you risk to kill and find it anyway that you can.

Envy looks like something of a physical problem, but inside our hearts it changes a lot of things and becomes a spiritual problem. For God it’s a problem. Envy breaks love.

Envy itself is not a sin, but when it grows up it will give birth to sin. James 1:15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin, and sin when it is of full growth, gives birth to death. Desire is there, it is not bad but if you give it a chance it will become envy. Envy is there, it will become pregnant, it will give birth to a sin and sin will give birth to a death. It doesn’t start badly, but if you give it the chance to grow up in you then it becomes a sin.

The way that envy can give birth to sin, it means that envy must have a relationship with something outside of the will of God. Envy will come to you through your body, then Satan will come and pass through, he will give you the idea that yes, it will be so nice for you to have it, you can have it. As Satan came to Jesus, he knew that Jesus was hungry, “look at these stones I know you can perform miracles, change them so you can have bread”. At that point Satan did not show Jesus that he wanted him to sin, he came in a helpful way, he had pity on Jesus.

He will show you that this thing is good for you. In saying that, Satan will never provide you with the money to buy what you want or what you need, he’ll give you another idea, he’ll flatter you and tell you that you need to be clever, although you might have money he’ll say, no, don’t spend your money you can steal it.

This is the first way that envy will become pregnant, by Satan coming through your thoughts. This doesn’t mean that this thing will have to be fulfilled, you have to make an action. The action that you will do is what will make you become a sinner. There are two ways of doing actions, either through our thoughts or through our bodies.

Your body – you can steal. Your thoughts – you fight against someone’s opinion or what they say. But the last decision belongs to you, it’s up to you to tell the spirit of darkness to say stop I agree with the Holy Spirit.

Once you have envy you will start another life, that life will not be normal life in Gods eyes. You will have courage to find and search whatever you want, but you’ll never have the courage to search in God's way. But if you desire something you will find it in a right way. That’s why God says, whoever has love will not envy. A good envy is what we can call desire, it’s the desire to do things for the glory of God.

Jealously is automatically a sin, you see someone or something and you have hate in her heart. With envy you see something but it has to become pregnant before becoming a sin, you can stop it.

God loves our souls, He desires and wants to have our lives. Sometimes we don’t listen to God, at that point God hates now the life that we are living because He wants our souls, He becomes jealous, His people are taking their souls into Satan’s camp, He doesn’t like our actions.


EXAMPLES

Joseph was loved so much by his father, his brothers also wanted to be loved the same way, they envied Joseph’s relationship with his father, they wanted the same thing. Because Joseph’s brother’s didn’t control their way of talking they now started to become jealous and hated him, they even wanted to kill him. Later on they needed food for their bodies, maybe they started to envy Egypt, “oh, if only we were Egyptians, it would be great”. The way that they envied was not bad, they went in a right way to get that food, they practised justice.

Jesus. The Pharisees envied Jesus. At the beginning it was good, they were waiting for the King to be born, they had a good desire. But when Jesus was among them Satan started to influence them, “this one will replace you, He can perform miracles, and you won’t, He can talk and people will listen to Him”. The Pharisees started to feel that they were losing their place, bad ideas started to come. The Pharisees were afraid of losing their ministries, they thought it would be better to find a solution. They wanted to speak like Him but they couldn’t find that way, then they thought “oh, let’s not give Him the chance to speak like that”. So they created a false accusation which Satan put into their minds, and when the Pharisees accepted that false accusation it became pregnant and the pregnancy gave the sin which was envy, to jealousy to hatred to death. Although Jesus told the truth they could never accept it.

Mt 27:18 For he knew that for envy they had delivered him.

Paul was envied: Acts 13:45 But when the Jews saw such a great number of people, they were full of envy and said evil words against Paul's preaching.