Top 7 Bible Verses To Deal With Jealousy

Here are 7 Bible verses that can help us all deal with jealousy.

Proverbs 30:8-9 “Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, “Who is the LORD?” or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”

Solomon, one of the wisest men to walk this earth saw the wisdom of balance. He knew that poverty could cause a person to become a thief but riches could make a person forget God as riches would replace God. Riches can be a god in themselves; it can supply our food, our shelter, our comfort, and everything we need so then we might deny God and say, “Who is the LORD?”

Deuteronomy 30:12-14 “when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.”

I would call this coming down with a case of “affluenza.” When we begin to increase in our wealth and possessions, the natural tendency is to forget all about God. Frequently, our problems and trials are the best thing for us. They keep us humble and make us see our desperate need for God but when we have every need met, then we get amnesia and forget all about God.

James 4:3 “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions.”

Many of us are jealous of others because they are blessed but have we ever considered that maybe they prayed and asked for the right reasons? I know that I have prayed before and asked for the wrong things and for the wrong reasons because I was only interested in spending it on my own passions and that’s why many times I asked and did not receive. My heart was not in the right place and I asked for the wrong reasons and with the wrong motivations.

Philippians 2:3 “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”

This is difficult for me since I am still selfish at heart. I try to do nothing out of a selfish ambition or conceit but my motives are often less than pure so what I must focus on is to “count others [as] more significant than” myself and make my desires be focused on others and not the self. In this way, the last thing I would feel is jealously over others status in life and over their riches or possessions.

James 3:16 “For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice.”

There are two pairs of things here that James is writing about and they typically go together; jealousy and selfish ambition and these two produce two other unfruitful products; disorder and vile practices. The converse must then be also true; where there is no jealousy and selfish ambition then there is no disorder or vile practices. It is a cause and effect law; jealously = disorder; selfish ambition= vile practices.

Galatians 5:14-15 “For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” But if you bite and devour one another, watch out that you are not consumed by one another.”

This is one hard command to live out. I have no problem loving myself but loving my neighbor? That’s an entirely different story but if I love my neighbor just the same as I love myself, then the last thing I would ever do is feel jealous over what they have. I would rejoice with them when they were blessed just as I would grieve with them when they were experiencing sorrow.

Proverbs 27:4 “Wrath is cruel, anger is overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?”

Cruelty and anger are bad enough and in fact Solomon says that they are overwhelming but placed against jealousy, Solomon asks, “Who can stand before that?” Jealousy can often times be the same as coveting and that’s the only commandment that cannot be observed externally because it’s an internal, heart-issue. Even for the spiritual giant, the Apostle Paul, he wrote “sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me all kinds of covetousness” (Rom 7:8).

Conclusion

It is very difficult to overcome jealousy. We need the help of God’s Spirit. Only by His power can we sleigh the heart of jealousy, covetousness, and selfishness. I cannot possible overcome these on my own nor can you. The Bible can help us deal with jealousy but only God’s Spirit can make us overcome it.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Blind Chance or Intelligent Design available on Amazon.