Jealousy

Jealousy

Kill the Spirit of Jealousy
D. L. Moody told of two merchants between whom there was great rivalry and bitter feeling. One of them was converted. He went to his minister and said, "I'm still jealous of that man, and I don't know how to overcome it." "Well," said the minister, "if a man comes into your store to buy goods, and you cannot supply him, just send him over to your neighbor." He said he wouldn't like to do that. "Well," said the minister, "you do it and you will kill jealousy." Sure enough, when he began sending customers over to his rival for goods he himself could not supply, the rival began to send customers over to this man's store, and the breach was healed.

Earthly Wisdom
Those who study bees tell us when a honeybee drives its barbed stinger into flesh, it becomes so firmly imbedded that the only way the bee can escape is to leave the stinger behind. This, however, is sure to cause the death of the bee. It receives such a wound that it cannot possibly recover. So it is with us. Sometimes we sting others because they are a little better than we are. Being jealous of them, we not only leave the sting in those who happen to disagree with us, but the act brings about spiritual harm to ourselves. If our zeal embitters others, it will multiply bitterness within our own hearts. Thus, when others feel the bitterness of our zeal, they will surely come to the conclusion that we do not possess Jesus Christ who descended from heaven to give us new life.

Overcoming Jealousy
Dr. F. B. Meyer told the following experience to a few personal friends: "It was easy," he said, "to pray for the success of Campbell Morgan when he was in America, but when he came back to England and took a church near to mine, it was somewhat different. The old Adam in me was inclined to jealousy, but I got my heel upon his head, and whether I felt right toward my friend or not, I determined to act right. "My church gave a reception for him, and I acknowledged if it was not necessary for me to preach Sunday evenings, I would dearly love to go and hear him myself. Well, that made me feel right toward him. Just see how the dear Lord helped me out of my difficulty. There was Charles Spurgeon preaching wonderfully on the other side of me. He and Mr. Morgan were so popular and drew such crowds that our church caught the overflow, and we had all we could accommodate."

Beware of Jealousy
Mrs. Wesley was extremely jealous of her husband. His work set him in the position of friend and counselor to many women. Among his helpers and in the institutions that were springing up under his care, women were employed, and each one was for his insanely jealous wife an object of deadly suspicion. Wesley on his part was apt to be tolerant, in a masculine and broad-minded way, of the facts and relationships of some women, which other women, even the best, would hardly forgive. Sally Ryan, for example, the housekeeper at one of his orphanages, was a woman with a past. She was at this time only thirty-three, but she had three husbands living and was separated from them all. Wesley was in constant correspondence with her, a fact which kindled his wife to fury. She stole Wesley's correspondence to satisfy her doubts. She would travel one hundred miles to see who his companions were at a particular stage of his preaching tour. Her fury threw her sometimes into paroxysms of mad violence and sometimes into acts of almost incredible treachery. She not only stole her husband's letters to satisfy her doubts, but she tampered with them so as to give them an evil sense and put them into the hands of his enemies to be published. Beware of jealousy. It can make the light of God in your heart so dark you see only evil, never good, in everyone. The Squawking Canary
In a home where a lady had two canary cages, one on either side of a window, a visitor made some comment about the birds. Whereupon the hostess remarked that one of the canaries was exceedingly jealous. She then proved her statement. Going to the cage of the bird that was not jealous, she began petting it, calling it pretty names and chatting with it. The reaction of the other canary was remarkable. Its feathers ruffled up, it fluttered all about the cage and made angry squawks of protest. There was no question about its jealous nature. Man, too, displays a jealous nature by his actions.