Dealing with Envy

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James 4:2-3 (NIV)
2 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. 3 When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

Tinuke and Adenike were best friends in the university. But after school, it appeared that Tinuke started progressing much faster than Adenike. Tinuke got a very good high paying job, but Adenike didn’t. Tinuke got engaged and married, but Adenike remained single.

Adenike became troubled because it appeared that God no longer answered her prayers. She started asking the Lord why.

The Lord mercifully revealed to her that since she graduated, she could not pray without having Tinuke in mind. She was envious of Tinuke, and her prayers always started from that point of envy and covetousness. She did not know that this envy was greatly hindering her progress and prosperity.

You see, when there is envy or covetousness in the heart of a believer, it pollutes his motives and hinders him from receiving from the Lord because God does not answer His children’s prayers that stream from fleshly motives. God is a good father; He does not reward bad behavior.

When a person truly trusts in God and knows that everything he will ever receive comes from the Lord, such a person will not be envious of his neighbor’s progress.

We can learn from today’s Bible verse that one way to ensure that God does not answer your prayer is praying from a standpoint of envy or covetousness. Envy causes hatred, and those who hate their brothers are considered to be murderers in the kingdom of God.

Go into today asking the Lord to help you purify your motives and pray acceptably.

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