Who God IsSampel

God Is Jealous and Zealous

God being jealous is an image difficult to imagine. Don’t we get jealous when our best friend is spending time with somebody else when they should be spending time with us? Now, God created us in His image to have a relationship with Him. He is waiting for us to spend time with Him. Doesn’t He have the right to be jealous for our attention? God wants us to give Him first place in our thoughts and actions, willingly and joyfully.

Closely associated with being jealous is being zealous, which shows the attitude of our heart. God is zealous about us. I have realized that it is not a matter of right or wrong, but it’s a matter of our heart being zealous for the Lord. Our zeal for the Lord helps us to grow closer to Him and to get to know Him more intimately. Once we start knowing God, we want to please Him and avoid doing the things He doesn’t like which automatically means we are obeying Him.

As humans we all have some zeal - It can be to please ourselves, our family, our friends, to become famous or to pursue our own goals. God is jealous of that zeal. God has the best planned for us and He just wants us to partner with him.

As a parent, I get angry when my son does not obey me. Yes, sometimes it’s the human anger which is caused because I can’t control my emotions. There are times I am angry because he fails to trust what I am telling him, as the situation is beyond his understanding.

There are times I punish him because I want him to learn a lesson. As a child, my son can learn to trust me or he can move away from me and start doing things behind my back. Being a parent, I am now able to understand a lot of instructions my parents gave me as a child which I questioned as a child.

There is a joy as a parent when we know our children trust us and they know in their heart that we wish them well, however annoying and irritating we may be. This is the same joy God wants with us. Let our misplaced zeal not arouse God’s jealousy.