It’s easy to want things too much.
Our church has 1000 members, but just down the road is one with 10,000. We glare each time we pass by and think, “What are we doing wrong?”
Or we raise funds to send the youth on a mission trip. When we total the final monies, there’s not enough in the till. We think of the affluent members of the church who could give and not notice the amount, and we growl, thinking, “If only we were rich!”
It’s easy to forget that we’re all in this together. We all endeavor to do the work of Christ. The soloist in front of the congregation wants the same uplifting message to be enjoyed as the tenor on the back row. The small-town preacher desires to win souls as much as the televangelist. Baptist, Fundamentalist, or Episcopalian, we all serve the same God. What is the reason for envy between brothers in the Lord?
In the days of the early Church, the Jews and the Christians sought a similar goal: service to the God of Abraham, Moses, and Isaac. Yet Acts 13:45 tells us:
“But when the Jews saw the multitudes, they were filled with envy, and spoke against those things which were spoken by Paul, contradicting and blaspheming.”
The Jews wanted the glory of God too much. They desired to keep it all. They refused to share. They forgot that there is one God; all of the Father’s children worship him in spirit and truth; and there is no other God before our God. They wanted the multitudes to gather around them, not around the truth spoken by Paul.
The synagogue leaders no longer cared about truth or allowing the Spirit to draw the needy and the dispossessed to God. They were willing to risk contradicting the spoken truth of God and blaspheming the message of the Son of God to hold religious power over the people.
The synagogue leaders no longer saw God’s will as their end. They desired all the power at any price. Christ’s message was that we need to work together. We can’t envy the hand of God on another person, and forget that we have the same goal. Our challenge is to win the world for Christ, whatever the part God asks us to play.
When we see our fellow Christians as brothers, our envy will fall away, and we’ll be a stronger team for Christ.
Copyright © 2016 MyChurchNotes.net
Originally Published 9-2-16 in Relationships