Issues of the Heart…

By: Shanna Cole

James 3:16

For wherever jealousy and selfish ambition are, there you will find disorder and evil in every kind.

Jealousy. That’s one of those words you can’t help but want to dodge. You want to think I am NEVER jealous of anyone or maybe sometimes you may question, are they JEALOUS of me?? Either way you slice it, jealousy is no good for anyone. I have had my fair share of jealousy, whether it be that someone had clothes or shoes I didn't have, money I didn’t have, car or house. We become jealous before we even realize it sometimes. The thing we need to realize is becoming jealous is giving the devil power over our thoughts and our feelings. If you pay attention, you are mostly jealous of physical or material things. You can't take those things with you and God will not ask if you had those things to get into heaven. You will end up despising people because of their worldly things and as my granny use to say “God doesn't like ugly.” That doesn’t mean physical ugly that means an ugly heart.

 I have even been jealous of other people's relationship with the LORD. But what people don’t see on the surface is what they did to have that relationship with the Lord. We can all have that relationship with him. Spend time daily in his word, praying to him to become more Christlike. Try to remember as you go about your day, worldly possessions are nice but to have a pure, clean heart and love for the Lord is of way more importance and value. 

Jealousy is a hard thing to turn off but once you have God in your life daily, it will become easier to be content with what you have and just be happy for others and what they have.