Thursday, September 13, 2012

...Whose name is Jealous.



I am a Jealous God...

I never understood this. Isn't jealousy wrong? Why would something that is wrong for us be something that God claims as his name? I  came to understand that it meant He didn't want to share our attention, our worship. (Jealousy being different than envy, though we often use them interchangeably). But it still didn't sink in, it didn't change my view of Him.

But it dawned on me recently.

I can be a fairly jealous person. I am not proud of this. I felt jealous and territorial when my "brother floor" at Moody had girls from past floors come and sit with them.  I sometimes feel jealous when I am insecure in a friendship, afraid that they might like the other person better than me. And when a boy I like starts talking to another girl, I am sure she will win his attentions over me. This I must conquer - I don't always like to share the people on whom I feel I have a claim.

God does not want to share us. Unlike me, in my weak selfish claim on people, God has every right to demand our full attention - He formed us and He paid for us. So when we devote ourselves to other things or people, when we are distracted, by a job, the latest technology, a relationship, media - whatever - we are not giving God our undivided attention. He is not receiving our full worship and devotion. He is jealous for our attention, for us to look to Him and only to Him for joy, peace, satisfaction, provision, healing. He is jealous for us to seek the best in Him. He is jealous for us to give our all to Him. 
God's jealousy is different than ours. We often are jealous out of fear or weakness. And we rarely have the right to make such a claim on a person. Yet God is justly jealous - sometimes in anger, always in love - and He deserves our utmost. 

So when i choose to watch Star Trek over reading scripture and praying - God is jealous. 
When my thoughts are consumed with whichever young man that has caught my affections - God is jealous.
When I start to think hungrily of a job that would pay well, of gathering up riches and resources and establishing myself that I might have security and control in my life - God is jealous.
When I approach life seeking ways to make me happy - God is jealous.

I offend God. I deprive him of what is His. I tell Him He has to share me. 
Let this not be so.

Oh, that the Church would cease her obsession with petty distractions and seek His face! 

May our God whose name is Jealous have mercy on us.



Ex 20:5 "Do not make for yourself an idol... for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God
Ex 34: 14 "Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Dt 4:24 "Be careful not to forget the covenant of the LORD your God that he made with you; do not make for yourselves an idol in the form of anything the LORD your God has forbidden. For the LORD your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
Dt 6:15 "Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you; for the LORD your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land..."
Dt 32:21 "I will hide my face from them," he said, "and see what their end will be; for they are a perverse generation, children who are unfaithful. They made me jealous by what is not god and angered me with their worthless idols. I will make them envious by those who are not a people; I will make them angry by a nation that has no understanding."
Jos 24:19 "We too will serve the LORD, because he is our God. Joshua said to the people, 'You are not able to serve the LORD. He is a holy God; he is a jealous God. He will not forgive your rebellion and your sins. If you forsake the LORD and serve foreign gods, he will turn and bring disaster on you'...But the people said to Joshua, 'No! We will serve the LORD."
Eze 16 - Israel, a woman God rescued, clothed, and lavished favor on, prostitutes herself to other nations and the gods of other nations, giving that which God provided her with to them. God responds in jealous anger.
Eze 36:6 "Therefore prophesy concerning the land of Israel and say to the mountains and hills, to the ravines and valleys: 'This is what the Sovereign LORD says: I speak in my jealous wrath because you have suffered the scorn of the nations. Therefore this is what the Sovereign LORD says: I swear with uplifted hand that the nation around you will also suffer scorn."  --This seems to be protective jealously directed at others - Do not harm my people, they are MINE - 
Joel 2:18 "Even now, declares the LORD, return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning... The the LORD will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people." -- again, protective jealousy, as in, leave them, they are mine - ?
Na 1:2 "The LORD is a jealous and avenging God; the LORD takes vengeance and is filled with wrath. The LORD takes vengeance on his foes and maintains his wrath against his enemies. The LORD is slow to anger and great in power; the LORD will not leave the guilty unpunished. His way is in the whirlwind and the storm, and clouds are the dust of his feet."
Zeph 3:8 "'But they were still eager to act corruptly in all they did. Therefore wait for me,' declares the LORD, 'for the day I will stand up to testify. I have decided to assemble the nations, to gather the kingdoms and to pour out my wrath on them - all my fierce anger. The whole world will be consumed by the fire of my jealous anger. Then will I purify the lips of the peoples, that all of them may call on the name of the LORD and serve him shoulder to shoulder.'"
Zec 1:14 "Then the angel who was speaking to me said, 'Proclaim this word: This is what the LORD Almighty says: 'I am very jealous for Jerusalem and Zion, but I am very angry with the nations that feel secure.''"
Zec 8:2 "Again the word of the LORD Almighty came to me. This is what the LORD Almighty says: "I am very jealous for Zion; I am burning with jealousy for her.""
2 Co 11: 2 "I am jealous for you with a godly jealousy. I promised you to one husband, to Christ, so that I might present you as a pure virgin to him. But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent's cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough..." 

The person I used to be.

“We all change, when you think about it. We’re all different people all through our lives. And that’s OK, that’s good, you gotta keep movin...