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Jealous for Me

    What in your life do you have a hard time letting go of? How do you prefer to spend your downtime? What comes first in your life?  Is there something that makes or breaks your mood? These are all questions I ask myself. There should be nothing more important in my life than Jesus. There should be nothing else that I am depending on for my happiness and nothing else that fulfills me like living for Jesus.

    Is anything blocking my way to a better relationship with Jesus? If I hold anything above Him, it is an idol in His eyes. It is easy to overlook the things in our lives that may serve as an idol. We get used to living a certain way and fail to see the harm we inflict upon ourselves when we worship something other than Jesus. 

    What can serve as an idol? Celebrities, our boyfriend or girlfriend, our parents, our children, entertainment, our work… you name it! There are is an infinite number of things that we can hold above Jesus. The trick is to recognize it, then to shift our gaze back on the King. 

    We cannot put our faith in another person to be our Jesus. They will always disappoint us, no matter how much they love us.  And Jesus will always love us more anyway. As for other idols, how can our entertainment, or our work, or anything ever mean more to us than the One who knows us intimately and never fails to meet our every need?? Jesus knows exactly what's right for us at exactly the right time. Jesus not only knows my heart, but everyone else's! Jesus never will lead us astray. So why would I ever try to follow the lead of something else? 

    The Lord despises idols. In the old testament, there are countless times when He is driven by a jealous rage for His people when they turn to idolatry. But when Jesus came to the earth, he made clear that the first and most important commandment was to love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind (Luke 10:27). The second is to love others as yourself. It's not the opposite! Our God wants all our love and affections. He is a jealous God. 

Exodus 20:1-5 
And God spoke all these words:
"I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. "You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God" (NIV)


    There is no one like Our God. There is no one and nothing that could ever even compare to Him. He has greatness beyond measure and yet he calls us His sons and daughters. We do not deserve His love or His goodness or His favor yet He lavishes it upon us! Why then, would we ever want to put anything before Him? I assure you that nothing else will ever fulfill you like Jesus does. Nothing compares. So set aside your idols and worship the One True King!!

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