Proverbs 27:4 - Wrath is cruel, and anger is outrageous; but who is able to stand before envy?

We always feel the compelling need to tear down and destroy the person that is greater than we are. It isn’t his successes or possessions or even his talents that we desire to destroy though, but it is his very being. Envy takes place of the murderer, the gossip, the reporter, the politician, the second rate scholar, the inadequate athlete, the moderately successful business man, and yes, even the preacher. A beautiful lady is used to getting all of the attention but now another beautiful lady comes on the scene who is just as out going as she is, so she immediately begins to tear her down by attacking her character and calling her names like “flirt” or “tramp.” The same can be said for men as well. We just have to cut others down to size. We belittle and depreciate whatever we can. We see that someone has an ability that we know we desire, but instead of rejoicing in that persons ability we begin to ridicule them for having what we know we wanted in the first place. Then, after we have tarnished an innocent persons reputation, we speak well of ourselves. We put on a show. We have to be the center of attention. Why? Because we are actually insecure with who we are, so putting others down, and making ourselves look good gives us a brief moment where we actually do not have to struggle with those feelings of jealousy in our breast…We will look more at this in a later devotion…

If you would like to hear the sermon I preached on Jealousy in its entirety click on this link: Listen Here ...