A Jealous God

The other week I was having a conversation with Matt about Genesis 3. We'd been looking at sin, how Adam and Eve responded when they sinned, how God responded, and began to dive into the consequences etc. As I was talking with Matt I explained how in the story we can tell that God was angry with Adam and Eve.

Throughout the Bible, God's response to sin is anger and wrath. He does this because he sees his creation rejecting him. With God, his anger is righteous, deserving. Where as we often think of anger as an emotion we shouldn't hold within us (James 1:19 encourages us to be slow to anger, and Ephesians 4 tells us not to hold any anger within us) anger can be righteous as we see with God (See John 2:13-22).

God is also a jealous God which is where my conversation with Matt went next. Again we saw an emotion accredited to God which we normally think of in negative terms. God is called jealous? Say what?

As I was talking with Matt I felt that there was a distinction where there was a good form of jealousy and a sinful form. Glen later filled in the picture which I had the frame for. Jealousy is desiring something that you should have. Envy is desiring something that doesn't belong to you. A man should be jealous for his wife, and a wife jealous for her husband. God is jealous for us, because he created us, and is the only being worthy of our worship.

And thus we sing "He is jealous for me." We have to be careful to realize what is ours and what is not, because in that determines whether we are in sin or in righteousness. I found myself full of envy this past week, and it threatened to tear apart some friendships I'd made. I realized by the grace of God that I was wrong in that, and I've since repented and reconciled the differences and the situation.

I pray that you will be jealous for your time with God daily, and jealous to see him receive Glory!