Guilty of envy

It’s not something anyone wants to admit but I am guilty of envy and it’s something I have struggled with my whole adult life.

To this day, I can tell you that I fight envy of people who have a partner in life as someone who has never been married and always wanted to be married.

I also fight envy of people who have family (relatives and in-laws) as someone who has always lacked BIGTIME in this department, as much as I am thankful for the increasingly smaller family I still do have.

As someone who is lonely with VERY few friends and struggles with isolation, not even having a local church currently that I attend, I have envy on that end too.

Then there's my envy of people who don't struggle with having enough money . . . 

It's funny how one of my main lessons in life that I like to tell people has to do with envy's love: Jealousy.

I know I have written about this before but I think it's worth repeating. When I took my first news reporting class at Ohio State, Journalism 202, my professor, Henry Schulte (an "oral history" interview before he died can be found on the South Carolina Press Association website), asked the class on Day One what they thought was the strongest emotion.

Class members shouted out answers: Love, hate, sorrow, anger, fear, etc. Nobody could come up with it. Schulte told us it was jealousy.

*****

Anyway, this was an impactful part of today’s main Sunday morning service at my Chicago church (that I watch online), given by Alex Kurz:

Paul writes in I Corinthians 13: [4] Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up,
[5] Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil;

Obviously envy carries with it the idea of resenting--someone who may possess success, blessing, position. Envy just has this resentment: “Why do you get it and I don’t get it?”

“Why do you have it and I don’t have it?” There’s a whole trail of envy in the Word of God. Proverbs says something important about that and this verse is kind of startling.

Proverbs 14: [30] A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.

You think about the language here and my brother-in-law Steve died of bone marrow cancer and it was just a horrific death.

You have the Lord here describing how deadly and dangerous envy is. It’s invisible. If it’s the “rottenness,” where is it? In the bones. That means it’s out of sight. It’s a cancer-eating disease that is invisible, but it’s deep and that’s the language here.

Envy is rotten; it’s like a putrid sore that just eats away. Proverbs 27: [4] Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?

You know this is the only time we read the word “outrageous”? I know people say, “That’s outrageous!” and not in a good sense.

When you think about the raging waves, that’s the language being used, by the way.

Notice who’s able to withstand before envy? Envy is worse than wrath! Envy is more deadly, more dangerous than anger. It is a crippling disease that, again, starts in the bones. It starts in the inner man; it starts in the heart of a person.

So consider what Paul is saying. He’s not telling us that by stopping envy then you’re going to be charitable. He’s saying, “No, this is who charity is,” and you can evaluate: “Where is your heart?”

There are frauds out there where there is a form of this, but it’s not the real deal. Charity is the real deal and here’s how she looks.

James 3: [13] Who is a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? let him shew out of a good conversation his works with meekness of wisdom.
[14] But if ye have bitter envying and strife in your hearts, glory not, and lie not against the truth.
[15] This wisdom descendeth not from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish.
[16] For where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work.
[17] But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, and easy to be intreated, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality, and without hypocrisy.
[18] And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

The verse is not saying that, in general, every single evil word that ever occurs in humanity has as its root cause envy. That’s not what the verse is saying here.

But certainly, what will envy result in? Evil work. Now, evil in a very specific way. The verse isn’t saying where envy and strife is there’s confusion and evil work.

This is a specific evil work that James is talking about. Look at verse 17.

So, what evil work is envying responsible for? The cancer that ekes within the bone marrow.

If we go to I John 3 we actually can identify the evil work.

I John 3: [11] For this is the message that ye heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.
[12] Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.

Wow, gets your attention. Why would I start thinking about Cain? Because God’s going to describe what true love is. In fact, this is a special type of love . . .

(to be continued tomorrow)