Envy Archives

[20] And he said, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him. [21] For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, [22] coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness. [23] All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” ~ Mark 7:20-23

I recently had a conversation with someone who uses Revelation 2 & 3 to defend his belief that the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews are not the true Jews/Israelites. After going back and forth for a bit, I asked him why he had no problem with the Mizrahi Jews but only with the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews. His response? The Ashkenazi Jews go around claiming to be Jews wearing their yamakas and believe they are God’s chosen people. It finally made sense to me.

It wasn’t about race or who the true Jews are or anything like that. It was about the fact that they know who they are and are proud of it. Proud of their heritage, culture, religion, and history, whereas he is not.

So often, our hatred, skepticism, criticism, and accusations are rooted in one thing. Envy. Envy, unlike jealousy (in my opinion), is rooted in wanting what you don’t have and what does not belong to you. Jealousy, on the other hand, is seeing what is yours and what belongs to you being taken away by someone or something else. It’s the desire to keep what is yours yours. One is rooted in self-doubt and often times, self-hatred. The other is rooted in the love you have for another.

When you hate someone and speak all manner of evil about them, take a moment and ask yourself why. Why do you have such a strong distain for them? Is it because they are deserving of this distain (in man’s eyes) or is it because you envy the life they have? The life you desire for yourself?

Often times, our own hatred is a projection of how we feel about ourselves. God made each and every one of us unique with a special purpose. If we focus all of our energy on others, we’ll end up missing our own call. Our own path. Our own destiny. God is no respecter of persons. In other words, He has no favorites. He is only looking for one thing. A willing heart.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Live Your Unique Life.

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¹ At that time, Judah left his brothers and went down to stay with a man of Adullam named Hirah. ~ Genesis 38:1^NIV

Judah’s envy of his brother Joseph led him to sin against him. It was Judah who convinced his brothers to sell him into slavery. Now, after seeing the effect it had on his father, he left his brothers and went to stay with a friend in another city. See, envy will lead us to do evil and wicked things. It’ll convince us to sin against another person at all costs in order to achieve whatever it is saying that person has that we want. The problem is that you’ll never be happy. Joseph was gone, yet Judah wasn’t loved by his father more. In fact, he was loved by his father even less. He refused to be comforted. He went into a deep depression that no one could rescue him from. Now that envy had taken so much from him, it quieted and made room for shame to enter and take what was left of him. His family.

Just as Joseph wasn’t with his father all of those years, neither was Judah. Judah stayed in Chezib until his children were grown and could have children. He most likely never left until he had to because of the severity of the famine. That which he took from Joseph was also taken from him. He reaped what he sowed almost immediately. This wasn’t the outcome that he expected.

Envy will lie and deceive and egg you on all in order to convince you to ruin yourself by trying to ruin someone else. God has called each one of us to a specific purpose. We’re all loved and treasured by Him. Your call on your life isn’t the same as someone else’s call on their life. If Judah knew that the Messiah, God Himself, would one day come through His line, I highly doubt that he would’ve been so envious of Joseph being his father’s favorite. We never know what God has in store for us, so we have to be careful not to focus on others. We have to simply focus on our own call from God.

Peace. Love. Go Forth and Focus On Your Call.

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