Someone Is Jealous For You

Jealousy ranks as one of the strongest passions we experience. Jealousy can strike suddenly, with ravenous, hot claws piercing our very being. If unrestrained, we easily resemble mad dogs inside as we are consumed with our unfulfilled desire. I’ve heard friends comment twice this summer how much they’ve been shocked by their own shameful behavior when the green-eyed savage strikes. I smiled, as I too related, and felt thankful that at those particular moments in time I happened to be free from jealousy’s rage.

Made in God’s image as we are, we experience His emotions, though in varying degrees far less than perfect. We often pray that our sanctified passions will increase in order to more closely align with His passions. We talk about the love of God, the wrath of God, the peace of God, the understanding of God, the holiness of God…but the jealousy of God? While pure human jealousy is a product of the sin of envy, the idea of feeling anger at being slighted or overlooked has its roots in a holy passion. As familiar as I am with the feelings of jealousy, I had not considered much the holy jealousy that we evidently provoke in God.

“For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God…do not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.” (Deuteronomy 4:24, Exodus 34:14)

God knows that He is the greatest love for us, yet we search for other loves and longings. We created ones futilely chase something other than our Creator. Deuteronomy 32:21 says, “They have provoked Me to jealousy by what is not God; they have moved Me to anger by their foolish idols.”

There is a God, and He is jealous over you.

For those who have never had anyone jealous over them or because of them, can there be any greater delight? For those who have had someone jealous over them or because of them, can there be any greater delight? Deuteronomy 32:9 tells us that “the Lord’s portion is His people.” Think of a tract of land being divided up between heirs, and one gets one portion, and another gets one portion, and so on. The Lord desires and waits to claim us as His portion. We are all He desires as an inheritance from this world. Although God needs nothing from us, for whatever holy reason, He seeks us as His inheritance, as that to which He is entitled.

“Is this the way you repay the LORD, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, your Creator, who made you and formed you?” (Deuteronomy 32:6)

I wonder if the more we are captured by God’s jealousy the less we experience our own pitiful jealousy. The more we are content that He Himself owns us, the less we have eyes for things that are at the most temporal, and the more we look to the eternal treasure awaiting the apple of our Father's eye. In the midst of searching scripture on the jealousy of God, a friend, Jason, handed me a CD so I could listen to his current favorite song. Written by John Mark McMillan, the song was inspired by the death and tragic loss of one of the songwriter’s best friends, and he even tearfully sings of his friend at the end of the recording. The song attempts to capture the raw emotion of being physically introduced to God for the first time. Inserting the disc into the player, the words began…

“He is jealous for me…”

Maybe it’s a theme, a gloriously, beautiful theme, a theme well-deserving to be shouted out to all of God’s beloved…to you.



“How He Loves,” written by John Mark McMillan, ©2005 Integrity’s Hosanna! Music.