The Love Dare, Day 8: Love Is Not Jealous
SUBSCRIBE to The Love Dare! Get The Love Dare in your Inbox!
You may have noticed that there has been a loooong pause between Day 7 and Day 8 of my The Love Dare journey. Chile, listen. This has been rough. There have been realities and revelations about myself that are just really hard to deal with. I’ve been processing — cooking, if you will — and I’m ready to keep going. I’m ready because I really LOVE what God is doing to me and through me during this journey. I love how He continues to open my eyes not only about myself, but also about the way we love each other as a society. What I continue to discover is, we don’t. As a society, we do not love and we do not value true love — unless it’s defined as passionate feelings. I saw this when I broke down the latest episode of ABC’s Scandal and the prominent “love” story between the two main characters. Yes, when I declared that this harmful relationship was not, in fact love, you should’ve seen the way people came for my neck! (You can actually see that, here). While it is SO awesome that more than 1,100 people shared that post — and most of all, a message of what Christ’s love actually looks like in practice — I was so disheartened to see some of the comments about what people really think love looks like. We have been operating in mediocrity when it comes to love for far too long. We are glorifying passionate dysfunction to the point that we actually long for it in our own lives. Give me stable, consistent, healthy, CHRIST-LIKE love, any day of the week. And if that means I’ve got to get broken down through The Love Dare to get to the point where I’m not only giving that kind of love to His people but also open to receiving that kind of love, then bring.it.on! Let’s keep it moving.
The Love Dare, Day 8: Love Is Not Jealous
Today’s Scripture: “Love is as strong as death, its jealousy unyielding as the grave. It burns like blazing fire, like a mighty flame.” Song of Solomon 8:6
Today’s Lesson: The Love Dare authors point out that there are two kinds of jealousy: legitimate and illegitimate. Legitimate jealousy, they point out, is based on love. For example, when people cheat on their spouse, the spouse has a legitimate jealousy because someone else has taken precedence over the rightful spouse. This mirrors God’s jealousy for our souls when we put the attainment of things (career, people, status, etc.) over our complete obedience and reverence to Him. We belong to Him and when our hearts stray from desiring Him and His holiness above all else, we are in trouble. The Bible warns, “the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God,” Deuteronomy 4:24).
Illegitimate jealousy, however, is rooted in selfishness, and that is the focus of Today’s Dare. This kind of jealousy is about desiring what someone else has (usually someone in close proximity to you) and can be painful depending on your level of selfishness. Instead of being the biggest cheerleader for people when they succeed, we resent them, even to the point of hatred and violent jealousy (the root of many crimes). But when we acknowledge that God’s power is infinite, and what plan He has for our lives is even greater than anything we can imagine for ourselves if we continue to walk in His holiness (Ephesians 3:20), we don’t have to be consumed with envy over someone else’s success. When we realize that love puts the needs of others above our own, we can refuse to let jealous creep into our hearts and we can refuse to invoke jealousy in others by bragging. Let the successes of your friends and loved ones draw you close together and let your own successes draw you closer to God by acknowledging His hand in every good thing in your life.
Today’s Dare: Day 7’s dare was to make a list of someone’s negative and positive traits. Today, discreetly destroy the negative list you created and celebrate someone’s success.
Scriptures I’m meditating on:
Exodus 20:17
“You must not covet your neighbor’s house. You must not covet your neighbor’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbor.”
Exodus 34:14
Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
Psalms 37:1-3
Do not fret because of those who are evil or be envious of those who do wrong; for like the grass they will soon wither, like green plants they will soon die away. Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
1 Corinthians 13:4-5
Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude.
James 4:1-2
What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don’t they come from your desires that battle within you? You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God.
Galatians 6:9
Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
Song of the Day: “Farther Along” is one of my favorite hymns! “Tempted and tried we’re oft made to wonder why it must be thus all the day long, while there are others living about us never molested though in the wrong. Farther along we’ll know all about it. Farther along we’ll understand why. Cheer up, my brother! Live in the sunshine. We’ll understand it all by-and-by.”