Jealousy

When I was preparing for the summer I had to read a book Spiritual Warfare by Timothy M. Warner. Today I found some notes I made while reading it. Simple notes. The book was talking about Satan's jealousy. I wrote "Satan is jealous of me." It made me think of the song "How He Loves." Part of the song goes, "He is jealous for me," 'He' being God. So I got to thinking, Satan and God, both jealous. How can that be? Both jealous of me? Really? Stop. Right there. That's my problem, and it can make a world of difference. Satan is jealous OF me. God if jealous FOR me.

God is jealous for me. Jealous for me, my attention, my dreams, my life, my everything. . Exodus 20:4-5a "You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁵ You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God." Why shouldn't he be? He made me. He made everything. He deserves my attention, my praise to Him, my everything. It all belongs to Him so He has every right to be jealous when we don't give Him what is His.

Satan on the other hand is jealous of me. Genesis 1:27 "So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them." We are made in the likeness of God and Satan is jealous of that. Not only are we made in the image of God but we are also heirs. Heirs to salvation. Romans 8:17 "Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory." We are meant to give God glory and Satan is jealous of the glory we give to God. Here is a passage (2 1/2 paragraphs, please bear with me) from Spiritual Warfare that says it better than I can:

...Satan knows that while we humans have been created in the image of God for this high purpose, we need an ongoing relationship with God to accomplish that purpose. Further, he now sees us as the avenue through which he can carry on his war against God. If he can lure us with his offers of information and power or intimidate us with his shows of strength, he can, he believes, frustrate the plan of God.

Thus Satan's jealousy of God provides powerful motivation for him in this war. Jealousy is one of those stronger emotions as far as moving to action. Allowed to develop unchecked, jealousy passes through three stages. First, we see what someone else has and we want it. At the second stage, we realize that the object of our jealousy can never be ours; so we hate the other person for having what we can't have. And finally, that hate leads us to try and deprive the other person of what he or she has, whether that be something physical or something like one's reputation. Lucifer quickly reached the third stage, and his one ambition today is to deprive God of His glory and to keep us from participating in it.

The Devil cannot deprive God of glory in Heaven, but he can keep God from having His rightful glory ascribed to him by people on earth. He does this by keeping them blind to God's true character and to His purpose in creating and re-creating them and by keeping them ignorant of the power which is available to them to achieve that purpose. And when some of the people on the earth do seek the Lord and try to walk in His ways, Satan can at least keep them from living in a manner that is "for the praise of his glory." The key in either case is to get them to live self-centered rather than God- centered lives, to buy into his lies about life, and to substitute Satan's kind of power for God's power.

Give God the glory He deserves. The glory that is His. Don't let Satan try to interfere. Do not let Satan win. God is jealous for your (my) me. Give yourself (myself) to Him.