When the spirit of jealousy overtakes someone they refuse to see anything good about the person they have decided to despise. Often they make up ideas in their head that they choose to believe about their target and repeat it to others as though it were true. Jealousy always spawns gossip.
Genesis 37:4 (Pertaining to Joseph)
"4 And his brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, and so they hated him and could not speak to him on friendly terms."
Joseph left and found his brothers in Dothan. 18 But before he got there, they saw him coming and made plans to kill him. 19 They said to one another, “Look, here comes the hero of those dreams! 20 Let's kill him and throw him into a pit and say that some wild animal ate him. Then we'll see what happens to those dreams.”
21 Reuben heard this and tried to protect Joseph from them. “Let's not kill him,” he said.
22 “Don't murder him or even harm him. Just throw him into a well out here in the desert.” Reuben planned to rescue Joseph later and take him back to his father.
23 When Joseph came to his brothers, they pulled off his fancy coat 24 and threw him into a dry well."
Genesis 37:28
"28 When the Midianite merchants came by, Joseph's brothers took him out of the well, and for 20 pieces of silver they sold him to the Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt."
Notice where jealousy led Joseph's brothers? Jealousy always leads to severe actions, reactions, and gossip. When someone is jealous they have to interpret even the good acts as foolish or unnecessary in their target. Everything is misinterpreted as mean or selfish, in other words, those who are jealous assign to their target the evil traits of the jealous one.
When someone is jealous they cannot stand that the object of their jealousy is joyful, accomplished, or just satisfied with their own life. Jealous people must do something to ruin the reputation of their target. They must call good deeds foolish and innocent deeds as having wrong motives.
Joseph's brothers hated him because he was favored by his father but also because he was hearing from God through dreams. And, worse yet the dreams were indicting his brothers as inferior by demonstrating that one day his brothers would bow down to him. Joseph didn't know what all this meant but God prepared him ahead of time to accept all the bad things that happened to him as leading to the final blessing he would have when God's purpose for his life was fulfilled.
Those who honor and obey God will be hated by those who say they are Christian but have no interest in obeying His Word. They lie against the Bible claiming things God never said and oppressing others with their false beliefs. And, they lie against the truth-teller because they hate the truth.
If a Christ-follower will not give in to the intimidation of the pretenders, the pretenders will attempt to turn others against the one they cannot control.
Notice that Christ did nothing but good on this earth when He was here. He healed people, fed people, offered them paradise without having to work for it and they still found reasons to hate Him and abuse Him. They turned down every blessing Christ had to offer even assigning to Him the works of the devil. This is a sin that can never be forgiven, claiming that Christ's miracles were of the devil.
Matthew 12:24 "But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “This man casts out demons only by Beelzebul the ruler of the demons”
Mark 3:29
"29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin”—"
John 15:20 "
"Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A slave is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted Me, they will persecute you as well; if they followed My word, they will follow yours also."
We know our authentic brethren who love Christ by the fruit of the Holy Spirit.
Galatians 5:22-23
"22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law."
John 14:21 "The one who has My commandments and keeps them is the one who loves Me, and the one who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and will reveal Myself to him.”
1 John 3:13-15 "…13 So do not be surprised, brothers, if the world hates you. 14 We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. The one who does not love remains in death. 15 Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that eternal life does not reside in a murderer.…"
We know the one who loves Christ by how much they love the brethren and the commandments of Christ. Sharing the word of God with one another is the greatest joy believers have. They would rather sit on the front porch with a brother or sister and discuss the things of God than any adventure the world has to offer.
Matthew 16:26 "Jesus said: "For what is a man profit, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
God said, 1 Timothy 6:6 "But godliness with contentment is great gain"
I remember on a number of occasions I visited friends who were "Christians." When I brought up something from God's Word to support our discussion there was intense disinterest and changing of the subject quickly. Over the years I came to understand that when someone shows disinterest in the Bible and God's principles I am probably encountering a pretender.
Often with pretenders, I attempt to engage in Biblical discussion because I enjoy God's Word and His principles more than anything else. Nearly everything that comes up in discussion brings to mind what God would think, but the pretender is always silent or distracted without engaging with me in my joy about Christ. This is very strong evidence that someone is not born again but attends church gatherings for their own purposes.
Many people attend gatherings because they feel safe there, they have friends and they like the music or the flattering sermons. When they leave the gathering for the week they return right back to their old ways without any thought of their need for obedience or change in their lives. This too is a powerful clue. If there has been no change after becoming a Christian then it is likely the person who became a Christian decided they wanted to join the club but didn't want Christ. There was no repentance, no brokenness and no salvation because Christ will not change anyone who is not repentant and has no desire for His direction and the Word of God.
I have known more of these kinds of people than anything else, they want to be seen as good people but do not want their lives to be ruled by Christ. They have little knowledge of the Bible and worse they don't want to know anything that does not enhance their personal beliefs about God.
Jealousy often emanates from those who are pretenders. They are jealous of those who have the fruit of the Spirit, those who walk their walk without being intimidated by the rules of men who disregard God. Confidence in Christ is intimidating to pretenders. They want everyone to be unsure of what they believe so they will accept anything the pretender desires to believe without challenge.
Confronting sin and Biblical error is the new hate speech in the minds of those who only care about being seen as a good person but have no desire to be changed by Christ. Appearances mean more to the pretender than substance. Feelings have more priority with the pretender than truth does.
In these last days of apostasy, believers are going to have to be strong in their walk with Christ. They will have to accept and be content with rejection, aloneness, and even persecution. We must learn to ingore our feelings. Did you know the more you ignore feelings about how you are being treated the less you have the feelings? Feelings are reactions to stimuli, if we know the stimuli are coming we will not be caught off guard leaning into feelings.
Feelings come and go but they do not have to control us and they do not have to guide us into reactions and then actions that may dishonor God or escalate matters.
We have feelings and we admit to them but they must not be the reason we do anything, truth must be our reason.
May each of us be under the control of the Holy Spirit all the time that He would be the One to speak through us. We do not have to figure anything out, we can trust the Holy Spirit to give us what we need when we need it. He speaks through His Word the Bible and will never contradict it.
John 16:13
"13 But when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for He will not speak on His own, but whatever He hears, He will speak; and He will disclose to you what is to come."
