When we're jealous, we are in effect saying, “God, you don’t really know what I need to be happy”. Often the 'gateway' to so many other negative emotions, from greed to anger to guilt and shame, jealousy is also a road leading to resentment of God's goodness in other people's lives, while ignoring God's goodness in our own lives.
The antidote for jealousy is cultivating a heart of contentment. And in truth, the secret of cultivating a heart of contentment is found in Christ and Christ alone. Let's unpack this and more in today's message…
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—Philippians 4:11-13 (CSB)—
11 I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. 12 I know how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content — whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. 13 I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.
—Philippians 2:2-4 (CSB)—
...make my joy complete by thinking the same way, having the same love, united in spirit, intent on one purpose. 3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility consider others as more important than yourselves. 4 Everyone should look not to his own interests, but rather to the interests of others.
—Philippians 4:6 (CSB)—
Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
—Psalms 63:1-7 (CSB)—
God, you are my God; I eagerly seek you. I thirst for you; my body faints for you
in a land that is dry, desolate, and without water. 2 So I gaze on you in the sanctuary to see your strength and your glory. 3 My lips will glorify you because your faithful love is better than life. 4 So I will bless you as long as I live; at your name, I will lift up my hands.
5 You satisfy me as with rich food; my mouth will praise you with joyful lips.
6 When I think of you as I lie on my bed, I meditate on you during the night watches
7 because you are my helper; I will rejoice in the shadow of your wings.
—Philippians 4:19 (CSB)—
19 And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.
—Philippians 2:5-11 (CSB)—
5 Adopt the same attitude as that of Christ Jesus, 6 who, existing in the form of God, did not consider equality with God as something to be exploited. 7 Instead he emptied himself by assuming the form of a servant, taking on the likeness of humanity. And when he had come as a man, 8 he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death —even to death on a cross.
—Ephesians 3:14-21 (CSB)—
14 For this reason I kneel before the Father 15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named. 16 I pray that he may grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened with power in your inner being through his Spirit, 17 and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. I pray that you, being rooted and firmly established in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the length and width, height and depth of God’s love, 19 and to know Christ’s love that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. 20 Now to him who is able to do above and beyond all that we ask or think according to the power that works in us — 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.
