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1 Cor 13:4-7

4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.


In our daily devotional series on love, for our third thing we will look at concerning love is something that love is not, or should I say does not do.

love does not envy

Envy could also be translated as jealousy as well.
So what's the difference?

Jealousy fears to lose what it has; envy is pained at seeing another have.

When you are jealous, you think that your spouse will leave you for something or someone better then yourself.
When you envy it's looking at others marriages and thinking that you wished you had a husband or wife like that.
James, Jesus' half brother, says this about envy.

  • James 3:16 For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.


    • Who would know better then James, since all his life he would have to watch Jesus doing good all the time, never getting in trouble with His parents and very popular with the people.
    Could James have had envy at one time towards Jesus?
    Could James have wished that He were not like himself and more like his big brother Jesus?
    We look at others and think that God loves them more then us because they read their bible more, they pray more, they witness more, they know more scripture then us and so on. Even in marriages we look at what others have and wish that we could be like them.

    But what James may have forgotten in his younger years is that God created him just as he was, and God also created James as the half brother of Jesus. Now how cool is that!

    In marriages, God created you and your spouse just they way you both are. God does not want everyone to be the same or else He would have created us all to be the same. How boring would that be? What choices would you have for a husband or a wife? You would just say, "Give me anyone, because they are all the same anyway."
    No, that's where the excitement comes in a marriage, because your husband isn't like your friends husband, and your wife is not like your friends wife.

    So to love without envy is being happy with what, or should I say, who, God has given you.
    God knows you both need each other and that's why He brought you two together.
    Things may be tough for you right now, but if they were easy all the time, we wouldn't know to enjoy those good times together.
    Maybe not the way your friend enjoys his wife or her husband, but rather the way you both can enjoy each other for who you are.
    Also remember that God loves you for who you are as well, that's why He created you this way.

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