July 6th

Do not let your heart envy sinners, but always be zealous for the fear of the Lord.
Proverbs 23:17

This verse reveals an important insight about the insidious power of envy. Envy is the doorkeeper to many sins of the heart in life. It introduces such things as anger, murder, jealousy, contempt, bitterness and sexual sins. It throws open the door to wickedness and corruption of the soul and the person.

Like many different forms of wickedness, it starts as a slow and almost undetected thought. Envy would like to dismiss itself as a common day occurrence that happens to almost everyone. When mature, however, it becomes a soul eating and life destroying monster of people and their families.

When we become zealous for the fear of the Lord, we discover the remedy for such sins, which could be described as being more afraid of damaging your relationship with the Lord than living in the pleasures of sin. This helps us to have a clean and pure heart before God. Such a pure heart makes us eligible to have an intimate relationship with Him on many different levels of our life. When we have a good friend, we can say that we know them in many ways. This is the very kind of relationship the Lord is after with us.