Read 1 Corinthians 13:4b-5 NLT
Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged.
“Love is not jealous”
When you look up the word jealous in the dictionary, you find a whole host of other words associated with the emotion or feeling of jealousy. Words like begrudging, distrustful, resentful, suspicious, defensive, and insecure. Those words don’t paint a pretty picture – certainly not a picture of what love looks like, especially when experienced in connection with our relationships. In fact jealousy is pretty toxic in our relationships. Instead of building up a relationship like love should do, if left unchecked, jealousy will systematically eat away at a relationship until there is nothing left.
Proverbs 14:30(NLT)says,
A peaceful heart leads to a healthy body; jealousy is like cancer in the bones.
Nothing good can come of jealousy in our relationships.
God,
Help me to search my heart today. Root out any sign of jealousy in my relationships. Jealousy happens when I look to other people and things to fill me and give me purpose, so remind me of Your love – a love that is complete. It has the power to give me all that I need so that I don’t search for it in other places and come up lacking. Help me evaluate my motives and my emotions and to surrender them to You so that my actions and my words look more like a picture of love. Amen.
