What To Do About ENVY: You Go First

"It is likely that you will overcome jealousy in proportion to the way you keep both your friends and enemies from being jealous of you.  As long as you are wanting them to be jealous of you, you reveal you are still jealous of them. But if you reach the place that it pains you for them to be jealous of you, it is a good thing.

"Like it or not, people will be jealous of you.  'I have nothing that would make them jealous,' you may say.  But they will still be jealous of you.  They will find something.  There is that in you that makes another person envy.  You may not think it, but it is true.  You may have a low opinion of yourself, but there will be something about you--whether your appearance, personality, gifting, job, friends, background, or opportunities--which will make them envious.  You simply cannot make everybody like you.

"It is our responsibility, when possible, to avoid the onslaught of jealousy from others.  We should never want to make people feel jealous.  We should practice the Golden Rule ('Do to others as you would have them do to you'--Luke 6:31), always being sensitive to their feelings and fragile egos.  It is wicked when we knowingly make another person feel jealous--or to set them up to feel jealous.  We should learn how to see it coming--both in ourselves and in others.  We should carefully avoid comments or situations that we know are likely to make people jealous.  In much the same way that we should make no provision for the flesh to fulfill the lust thereof..., so too we should learn what will make other people jealous--and never go there."

--R.T. Kendall, Jealousy: The Sin No One Talks About: How to Overcome Envy and Live a Life of Freedom (Lake Mary, FL: Charisma House, 2010), pp. 179-80.

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