Hello Travel Companion!

Happy New Year!

Between being sick and having a minor surgery, these past weeks have flown by and I haven't had the attention or memory to study God's jealousy more and explain anything better.

For this may have also been the most difficult characteristic for me to wrap my head around, and I feel as though I have only scratched the surface. And if my focus has strayed off of jealousy, I hope you will forgive me. But I pray you learn something new or are challenged with a new idea.

God is Jealous

Who is God? What makes Him jealous?

To understand what makes God jealous, we have to understand the original design of mankind. For three things make God jealous and each of these things goes against God’s original design of mankind.

The first is when we make ourselves a carved image. The Hebrew word here is asah and also means “do” as well as “make.” There are times when I get carried away with how great I did something, I said something, or I made something; and it’s in those moments I start to value the action and the results more than I value God’s authority over those things, His strength that empowered me, and gifts He gave me enabling me to do and accomplish those things. God is rightly jealous when we value and honor actions and created things more than the Creator because He is the one that gave us the ability to do so, He gave us the means to speak, and He is the one that brings about the results.

The second is when we bow down to something or someone other than God. I play video games, and for many years they were my escape, comfort, and how I avoided the hardships of life. I am also a people-pleaser and for most of my life my goals revolved around keeping people happy by doing what would please them. In both these cases I was seeking what I needed and my own worth from video games and people respectively. God is rightly jealous when we seek these things from something or someone other than Himself, for He is our provider who gives us exactly what we need when we need it, and the one who determines our worth.

The third is when we serve an ideal rather than God. As a kid, everything I played with turned into a family, and as I grew up, I believed that’s how it would go: I would get married, have kids, and live happily ever after. That’s how it works in all the books and movies, isn’t it? I never would have imagined that God may very well call me to singleness and find complete joy and contentment in Him. But for years I lived thinking this ideal path should be mine and as a result I based some bad choices on those beliefs. God is rightly jealous when we base our actions on our own beliefs or another’s rules rather than according to His ways and the path He has carefully laid out for us.

When and/or where do I see evidence of this characteristic in my life?

When I first heard this song it was within those first couple of weeks after I broke up. I literally stopped in my tracks and cried. In my heart, I knew the moment God was singing this song over me, it was the moment I lost my virginity. The tears I cried that night were still in God’s hands. And I saw how God never abandoned me, even in that moment He was still there by my side.

Though I sought out that relationship out of my belief I needed to get married, and led me down a path I knew wasn’t right, God didn’t give up on me because His jealousy for me drove Him to keep calling out to me. He called out to me through my parents, my siblings, one of my sister-in-laws, and even through my pastor and his wife. Eventually those messages began to pierce through the hardness of my heart, and with the help of those people I was able to turn around and climb back into the safety of God’s arms.

How does this trait affect how God sees me?

God sees me, all His children, as worth fighting for.

Our failures and mistakes aren’t seen to be shamed, but rescued from.

For in His love, His jealousy doesn’t burn against us, but for us.

In an article titled Jealousy and Love: Are they Connected? they note: “Jealousy, in particular, is linked to a greater love for the partner. Moreover, if it is conveyed in a healthy way, a little bit of jealousy might be seen as a good thing in a relationship. In reality, studies have shown that in relationships, jealousy is associated with a greater love for the partner, stronger sensations of being 'in love,' and more stability in the relationship as a whole.”

God's jealousy is born out of His love for us, and His jealousy multiplies His love for us.

Because of this perspective, what has God done?

Adultery is not a greater sin than any other sin, but it is spoken of more vehemently in the Bible because it represents the affair we have all had with sin. Because of this, the fury of God, our husband, burns against each of us.

Nothing we give God could ever appease His wrath. No amount of good works and penance can persuade Him we no longer deserve His judgment. But God is not only jealous, He is also compassionate, and this jealousy is born out of His love for us, and jealousy drove Him to action.

Not an action of immediate destruction though the fires of His wrath were kindled in each of our hearts at the moment of the fall, but a rescue mission. He sent us His Son to die in our place, to take God’s burning rage upon Himself. For only the blood of Jesus can douse the flames of God’s wrath.

How does this new understanding affect my response and how I live my life?

The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. - Genesis 2:15 (emphasis added)

So how did God originally create us?

First off, God made us in His image. That means everything He does, everything He is, and all He desires, should be what we do, are, and desire.

God is the Creator. He created everything. And He calls us to be fruitful, increase, and fill. Everything we produce (make), increase (make more of), and fill (fulfill, accomplish) is to reflect God, to help others understand Him better. Because God is too vast and great we cannot possibly reflect the entirety of Him, just as we cannot see everything in a mirror - the view is limited. But the parts we know and exhibit should be shared with others that they too may know and learn more about God.

God is the supreme ruler. Everything is under His domain. And He calls us to subdue and rule over creation. In our exercising of authority, we should be imitating God who rules out of love, tender care, and provision. Our role as stewards of creation is to distribute this love, care, and provision from God, and point everything and everyone under our dominion back to God who is the provider and source of love and our worth.

God is the master planner. From the moment He said, “Let there be light,” (Gen. 1:2), God had a plan of what creation would be when Jesus returns in all His glory and the heavens and earth are remade. And He calls us to work and take care of His creation. Our motivation should be to improve what is to reflect more of God more clearly, to transform it into something that represents God's glory. For if God is ever an evolutional God, it is in His ability to renew and transform something and someone into something way better than they began.

Personally for me in my writing, this means everything I write, even the fantasy and sci-fi I dream of writing, should be reflecting God and His truths. That I hold the responsibility of keeping these ideas subject to God and His ways. And my motivation for writing isn't to gain glory and praise as an author, but to declare God as the source that fulfills our every need.

What would being jealous for God look like for you?

Until next time when we dive into how God is just.

With love in Christ,

Rachel

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Previous newsletters can be found here. And in case you missed it, this is my latest blog post:

All Bible quotations are from the New International Version (NIV) unless otherwise noted.