BVOV Magazine 2013 - present

My father in the faith, Kenneth E. Hagin, used to say, “You can’t stop the birds from flying over your head, but you can keep them from making a nest in your hair.” And that’s how it is with your thought life. You can’t stop thoughts from coming, but you can refuse to give place to them—and you should if they come to you from Satan! He puts thoughts into your mind to tempt and solicit you to do evil. He presents his envious ways of thinking to you like a salesman, hoping that you’ll buy them. If you reject what he’s trying to sell you, however, he’s out of business. He has to go looking for another customer if you refuse to accept his ugly thoughts and take God’s thoughts instead. How do you take God’s thoughts? By filling your mind with the Scriptures, which are His written Word. As you read the Scriptures and meditate on them, they’ll come alive in you and drive out everything that’s contrary to them. God’s thoughts about love will send envy packing. They will help you recognize it for what it is so you can identify it, deal with it as sin and put it away from you. That’s important to do because envy will not only corrupt your love walk, it will neutralize your faith and put you at a great disadvantage. It will literally do damage to your life. It can even lead to sickness and disease and cause your physical body to deteriorate. As Proverbs 14:30 says, “A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.” I don’t know about you, but I am not interested at all in having rotten bones! I want to depart from the evil of envy, so I can enjoy health in my body and strength in my bones (Proverbs 3:7-8, "New King James Version"). “Well,” someone might say, “I think everyone has a little envy in them. I don’t think it really qualifies as evil.” Then you’d better think again because the Bible puts it with the worst of the worst. It identifies envy as a work of the flesh and lists it in Galatians 5 alongside things like adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, murders, drunkenness and revellings (verses 19-21). Envy is even referred to in Scripture as a symptom of a reprobate mind. It’s named as a characteristic of people who, as Romans 1 says, are “being filled with all unrighteousness, sexual immorality, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy…haters of God, violent, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, undiscerning, untrustworthy, unloving, unforgiving, [and] unmerciful” (verses 29-31, "NKJV"). Envy keeps really bad company! It isn’t anything to mess around with. It’s an ungodly, destructive force. It’s a manifestation of darkness and an absolute enemy of love. Running Over With Love, Joy and Contentment If you’ll live by His wisdom, you won’t be very susceptible to envy. You won’t have to be jealous of other people, because your heavenly Father will bless you as much as anyone around. As you delight in Him, “He shall give you the desires of your heart” (Psalm 37:4, "NKJV"). What’s more, as you delight in Him, spending time in His Word and in prayer, you’ll become divinely content. You won’t be inclined to envy someone else’s lifestyle or possessions because you’ll be busy basking in the richness of life in Jesus. You’ll be praising Him, enjoying the satisfaction only He can give, and saying, “In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11, "NKJV"). On the other hand, if you don’t take time to delight in the Lord, if you spend all your time on natural things and set your affections on them, you won’t have that inner sense of contentment. You’ll grow cold toward God, your spirit man will take second place, and you’ll start looking to the things of this world to give you joy, peace and delight. You’ll start noticing others who have things you want and don’t yet have, and you’ll become vulnerable to envy. Envy is a diabolical thing. It has been used by Satan throughout history to stir up persecution against God’s people. Remember how, in the Old Testament, Joseph’s brothers sold him as a slave to the Egyptians and then told his father he’d been killed? Acts 7:9 says they did that because they were “moved with envy.” In the New Testament, the Jewish leaders delivered Jesus over to the Romans to be crucified. According to Mark 15:10, they did it “because of envy” ("NKJV"). Remember all the trouble the Apostle Paul had to go through in the book of Acts just to preach the gospel? Almost all of it was caused by a spirit of envy. That spirit got on the unbelieving Jews of that day and drove them, in one situation after another, to try to destroy the Apostle Paul’s ministry any way they could. 26 : BVOV

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