As I am looking into love it already seems like an extremely difficult task, even though so far all we have is patience and kindness.
Love is. . . Not envious
The last two aspects of love were things that we are to do, now there are things that we are not to do if we are loving someone. "Love does not envy", to not envy or covet is also one of the Ten Commandments. When I see something mentioned more than once, especially mentioned in major areas, in the Bible I figure that I need to note it and that it is being repeated because of its importance.
Envy is "the desire to have a quality, possession, or other attribute belonging to someone else. A feeling of discontented or resentful longing aroused by someone else's possessions, qualities, or luck."
Covet is to "yearn to possess or have something"'
I figure that the opposite of envy is contentment, peace, and self-control. When you do not envy another person you rejoice with them in all the things that they posses. So as I see it there are two basic steps you take to become a less envious person.
First, you are satisfied with your life and what you have. You are content with the house you have, with your body, with your talents, and with the blessings that you have. When you covet another person it is because they have the thing you want, you want that thing because you are not satisfied with what have and you "need that to make you happy". To be "happy" we need more of everything and anything, we become greedy and "yearn to posses or have something". In todays culture this is acceptable, it is only natural to want a better life right? That is the way of the world though, we are not of this world and the way we are to love is not in their standards! In the Kingdom of God the poor, weak, and least of all people are the greatest. In His Kingdom we do not crave to have possessions that will fade away and be destroyed.
My "life verse" that I try to conduct myself by is Matthew 6:32-35, "Seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all these will be provided for you." What we need is provided for, and sometimes even things that we do not need but would like to have are also given to us. We should be living perfectly content lives as Christians then, in theory at least. There are advertisements that appeal to our covetous nature, showing something another person has and how happy they are since they purchased it, and now you too need to buy it. We all fall for this, Christian or not. We are told what is a basic and necessary lifestyle to have and we show that to God even though his idea of living life and the worlds idea of it are different things.
God created us, so he knows are nature and weaknesses. He knows that when we have a lot of things we want more of it. There is even a prayer in the Bible asking God for just enough so that we do not forget him and chase after the world and do not have too little that we doubt him. This should be our heartbeat. We are content with what we own.
Another part is being content with our skills and the way that we look. We also covet the bodies of models and the skills of celebrities. Until you value yourself and the way the God created you loving other people in the proper fashion is out of the question. How can you love your neighbor as yourself is you hate your life and who you are? How can we love others in the way that God loves us if we believe ourselves to be unlovable and will not accept or understand His love?
Think on this, are you truly content with your life how it is? Are you comparing yourself to others?
Second, you rejoice in the blessings of others and feel blessed to see others blessed. When you are content with who you are and what you own you then look at others in a new light. You no longer are comparing how much better their life is and compete to see who can be better off. When another person gets the promotion you want are you truly happy for them? When your friend is pregnant when you have been trying for years do you rejoice with them without bitterness or discontent? When blessing after blessing comes to other people so you thank God for blessing them in your prayers, or do you ask Him to give you the same thing out of jealousy. Do you feel like an equal child of God with everyone else, or do you feel like they are a favored child and you are the ugly duckling.
If you truly love a person then when they are blessed you are also blessed and they now feel even better because others are happy for them. This love is not to give you warm and fuzzy feelings, it is to make you make others happy. You have peace with your life and you do not indulge in consuming things to "one up" those around you, making them feel worse so that you can feel better. I do not know how I can ever fully master being content and praising God for the blessings of others, especially if I try to do it on my own strength. It is in my corrupted nature to envy everyone I see for something, and that is corrupt love.
When we see people who are more or less fortunate than us we should pray for them to be blessed, because we would rather them be better off then ourselves. To not envy is an extreme of self sacrifice and of putting everyone else before us. The last shall be first. People really feel loved when we show them that we are concerned with their happiness and that we are not with them for selfish motives, to gain what we want that they have. We restrain our personal desires and instead see what they need. Do not covet of envy, because you are also blessed and it hurts both God and others to see you wanting more and more when you have enough. You are highly blessed, go bless others and celebrate how good God is. Lets love people not for what they do and do not have but because they are precious.
Refining the faith,
C.A.M.
Photo Credit: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Love_heart.jpg
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