A while back, after hearing the song ‘How he loves’ for the first time, I was challenged by the first line, ‘He is Jealous for me’. My first thought was, really? Is He? Before shrugging off the song completely I listened on, to find the rest of the song really help me in my worship, but I still struggled with this line.
At first I didn’t really get why God would be Jealous. We are singing another song in church tomorrow, which also includes this word, as it says ‘See the Jealous Son of man, turn the tables upside down in Jerusalem…’ (Part of a kid’s song we are doing for Palm Sunday.) So in the practice today we were talking a little about God being a Jealous God.
Which inspired me to do a little more research… First of all, it is biblical! The idea of God being a Jealous God pops up numerous times in the Old Testament. Exodus 34:14 reads ‘Do not worship any other god, for the LORD, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.’
And Exodus 20:5 says ‘You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God’
I actually think that this is a really amazing thing, that God is Jealous for us. Jealousy is something that only really comes about from love, relationship. A man gets Jealous if the woman he loves goes off with another man. A mother gets Jealous if her Son tells her he loves his mother in law more (Though I am told this is not often the case… I wouldn’t know yet!!)
The point is I think there is a form of Jealousy that can be helpful. If a man wasn’t jealous that the woman he loves goes off with someone else, then I wonder if he really loves her? If a mother doesn’t get jealous if she finds her relationship with her son being lost, then there may be a slight worry?
Don’t misunderstand me there is definitely a lot of jealousy that is very unhealthy, again we read in the bible, this time in the 10 commandments: ‘You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.’
But Nearly all of the 10 commandments rely on God being a Jealous God, or they don’t really work, ‘Do not have other Gods before me’ Don’t make idols’ ‘Do not worship idols’ ‘Remember the Sabbath, keep it holy’ etc… If God is not Jealous then these wouldn’t work. He doesn’t give us these commandments because he wants to box us in, but he gives us these commandments because he loves us. He is not annoyed when we break them just because we are not meant to. He is annoyed because it ruins our relationship with Him. His Jealousy shows his love for us.
So going back to Jesus in the temple, was he Jealous at this moment? Yes I believe he was. I think he was more than Jealous, angry, furious, annoyed, but all of these spring from that Jealousy, if he wasn’t Jealous then he wouldn’t have a reason to be annoyed.
Its pretty late, these thoughts may all be very jumbled, but I wanted to share that with you anyway. I believe it is a real part of God that we don’t think about enough. Knowing he is all loving, Jealous for us. Knowing that when I give my worship to money, or the latest material thing, God doesn’t just think ‘Oh no, he’s done it again!’ But actually, He hates it. To me that makes me just want to give so much more of my self in worship, knowing that He really does care what I give my worship too.
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