HATRED AND JEALOUSY: THE DESTRUCTIVE DUO

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"Jacob lived in the land where his father had stayed, the land of Canaan. This is the account of Jacob. Joseph, a young man of seventeen, was tending the flocks with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, his father's wives, and he brought their father a bad report about them. Now Israel loved Joseph more than any of his other sons, because he had been born to him in his old age; and he made a richly ornamented robe for him. When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him." Genesis 37:1-4

Hate and jealousy. There are not too many more emotions that are more deadly and ruinous than these two. It’s been said that a majority of murders are committed because of one of two root motives…either love or money…and based on what we see and read in the news every day, it’s hard to argue with that theory. Now obviously, people don’t get murderous because they love the person they kill…it’s rather because they have hate them for whatever reason and jealousy is too often the bed partner of hate.

It’s little wonder that the bible offers so many verses on love and so few on hate. It is God’s will…and it was certainly reinforced through His only Son Jesus…that we love one another…not just some of the time but ALL of the time. This is because when we let our love guard down, hate is ready to step in. Or in other words, when we stop living like Jesus, who was love personified, we find ourself distanced from Him and vulnerable to Satan and his attacks. Just as much as love is edifying, hate is destructive. Just go back to our earlier studies in Genesis and see what hate did to Cain…it led him to destroy his brother Abel. And at the root of that hatred was jealousy.

In today’s scripture, we see Old Testament history repeat itself. Jacob has lost the love of his life, Rachel, and his father, Isaac. You can’t help but think that he went through some significant grieving for awhile after these deaths and would be looking for sources of joy that might break the pain and despair within. Well, we read that Joseph became the apple of Jacob’s eye in the time following Rachel’s passing. After all, Joseph was the first son that Jacob and Rachel had together. I can’t help but think that had something to do with the favored status that Joseph held in his father’s eyes.
Whatever the reason, we know that Jacob loved Joseph more than his other 11 sons and he expressed that love by making Joseph a "richly ornamented robe"…the infamous coat of many colors. The robe became a symbol of Jacob’s preference for Joseph and a constant reminder to the other sons that they all came in second. This led to their hatred which was so intense they couldn’t even "speak a kind word to him." This hatred would soon bubble over and lead toward thoughts of…you guessed it…murder.

Question: Do you harbor any hatred toward anyone? Jealousy? If so, I pray that you will turn to the Lord this very minute and repent. For know this as truth, hatred and jealousy are not of God…they are of Satan. And know and trust this, Satan’s chief goal…his very reason for existing…his relentless pursuit is to destroy every good and perfect thing that the Lord has made. Every person…every relationship…every gift…every blessing…Satan wants to lay waste to it. Don’t let him have the victory and remember the words of James…brother of Jesus who said, "Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you." (James 4:7-8)

In Christ,

Mark

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