The Key to Overcoming Your Own Personal Envy

Shared on October 23, 2024

Now that we have seen what envy is capable of doing – we must overcome our own personal envy! The question is how do we overcome our own personal envy? Watch this week’s study as Pastor McCrary shows us where envy comes from and the key to overcoming your own personal envy growing within.

Introduction

Being envious is certainly something that we should avoid at all cost.  As we saw in last week’s study, envy can cause us to raise ourselves up against those around us and move against them. Moving against our neighbor is to move against ourselves and to move agaisnt God. So, we must do everything we can to keep envy from growing within us. So, let’s try to understand envy and where it comes from so that we can better get a handle on it.

The Birth of Envy

What is envy, where does it come from?  We often use envy and being jealous interchangeably.  With a check of the dictionary, we are told that envy is a painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage.  

With the mention of a resentful awareness, we creep into the territory of one building up annoyance and ill will.  If we think about this, Joseph’s brothers envied him because they hated the fact that he was favored (Gen. 37:3).  Envy being born from hatred I highly doubt is rocket science to us.  This is why we are so often warned in scripture about hatred – hate gives way to nothing that can bear good fruit.

In another case of envy, Cain went through actually murdering his brother, Abel (Gen. 4:8).  Why did Cain murder his brother?  Because he was angry that God respected Abel’s offering but did not respect his offering (Gen. 4:4-5).  So, again, not rocket science, that anger gave way to Cain believing that Abel enjoyed an advantage over him.

Envy blocks all sight

Now, Cain was right to see that God did respect Abel’s offering over his.  Joseph’s brothers were right to see that Jacob favored Joseph over them.  However, I want you to notice that from their anger and hatred, they were also blinded from seeing the other truths.  No matter how much we want to make things out to be black and white, there is often nuance (details) that we miss.  

Are you able to recognize what both Cain and then Joseph’s brothers missed out on due to their anger, hate, and envy?  I will help you with this one – they missed out on the fact that they were loved.

For example, let’s take a look at what God told Cain before he went and killed Abel.  God said to Cain, “If you do well, will you not be accepted?  And if you do not do well, sin lies at the door.  And its desire is for you, but you should rule over it (Gen. 4:7)?”  Does it sound to you that God despised Cain and had given him up to sin?  God had not given up on Cain and gave him a rebuke to correct things so that He could also be accepted and favored.

We shouldn’t get the thought in our head that Israel did not love the rest of rest of his children.  Scripture is clear in the message that he loved Joseph more than all his children, but that does not mean he did not love the rest of them at all.  Joseph held a very special place in Israel’s heart because he had Joseph with Rachel, the woman he truly loved and worked hard to earn (Gen 29:15-30).  

Does this make Israel’s favoritism right?  Absolutely not.  Israel certainly had his faults and his two wives certainly added to it with the games they played. The two wives offered Israel mistresses that he laid with and he ended up having children with two other women – four women in total!  Now, with that said, evidence in scripture does show us Israel did love and care for his his sons and his daugther.

Now, some may wonder whether or not God even loved Israel’s other children since Joseph was the one that receive the dreams of greatness.  However, we should know that God loves everybody.  Even more, we know that Israel’s twelve sons were part of God’s promise to Abraham.  In fact, the children of the twelve sons were given the Promised Land and supposed to be a holy kingdom of priests to God (Ex. 19:6). 

So, I repeat to you, envy can and will blind us from seeing the truth before us because we are too focused on a distorted truth we have made up in our head.  Joseph’s brothers were certainly loved, favored, and blessed by God but they were too hung up on Joseph’s blessing to realize this truth.  The same thing holds true for all of us as well – being envious can and will keep you from seeing how God has blessed you.

With envy being able to blind us to the truth, let’s me also point out that without the truth, there is no hope. Therefore, envy can and will blocks you from having and living with hope in your heart.  Hope is what pushes us forward in faith that God will provide and will wait on Him.  Envy, on the other hand, moves in a manner that wants and will take without wiating.  Faith is patient whereas envy is impatient and irrational.

How to Overcome Personal Envy

To defeat envy, we must recognize when we are becoming envious of others.  We cannot ignore the signs.  We know where envy comes from, that it comes from hate.  So, if we find ourselves starting to despise what someone has gained, we can’t ignore that sign, right?

James wrote to this notion when he said, “If you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth (Jas. 3:14).”  The first place to begin in overcoming envy from growing inside of you is to step back and admit that it’s there. 

Consider: Are you despising what others have?  Are you starting to think from a place of self-seeking (selfish ambition)? Are you losing patience for what you may desire? Are you moving irrational to take rather than waiting on God to provide? If you have lost patience, moving to take something others have from a place of anger, that’s moving out of envy – be careful.

Too often, many of us believers like to think of ourselves as being perfect and we won’t acknowledge our shortfalls.  Here is a very harsh truth and wake up call:  you are not perfect – nobody is perfect.  It is when we choose to go blind to our sin, that sin will continue to grow in us.  When we can at least acknowledge a problem, we can at least attempt to work and correct the problem.

To defeat our own personal envy, we have to confront why we are being envious.  Oftentimes, just as it was with Cain and Joseph’s brothers, our envy is from some advantage we perceive others to have over us.  There are actually many times where we speculate that what someone has is better than what we have but we never stop to consider whether that really is true.

Such a way of thinking calls on us to, again, take a step back and be observant.  This reminds me of those lessons we learned growing up about the green grass on the other side.  Some of us learned the lesson that the grass isn’t always greener on the other side.  Sure, that car that someone has might be “nicer” than your but we have no idea the headache they have in its upkeep, paying insurance, bills, etc.  

You see, I’m of the belief that what we receive from God is meant for us.  Would you agree? As Paul said, there are various gifts that the Lord gives through the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:4).  All of the gifts that God gives are for the profit of all (1 Cor. 12:7).  Paul would go on to list a number of gifts that some may receive while others will receive a different gift.  There are gifts that Paul can’t even name because his mind, along with ours, are limited to what God can give.  

Paul’s point was that all of us have received from the Lord, and therefore, we shouldn’t envy what others have.  Again, when we are so focused on the gifts of others, our gift isn’t being used.  Guess what happens to a gift when that gift isn’t being used?  It goes to waste and it wastes away!  

We must come to understand that every single gift from God is of use with no gift being “better” than another.  All our gifts are to come together and work together to profit each other!  So, rather than envying each other, we must learn how to come together and unite together to uplift one another.

So, to begin to defeat personal envy, we must come to recognize the blessings that God has given to us.  We must learn to be content with what God has given to us.  The Lord graciously gives and supplies our every need and we should appreciate His giving rather than frowning at His giving.  Truly, when we step back and become thankful of God’s giving, then we have taken a big step in overcoming envy.

As Paul wrote to the Galatian church, we must walk in the Spirit and not become conceited, provoking one another, nor envying one another (Gal. 5:26). So, an additional step we absolutely cannot forget would be to choose love, not hate. Hate and its actions has no place inside the heart (the soul) of those who love the Lord. Truly, when we can step back and choose love rather than hate, be grateful rather than unappreciative, then we can begin to grow and move on from such a bitter place.