Knowing God through your Emotions - Jealousy

We continue our series on ‘Knowing God through your Emotions’ and look at the unsettling, volatile, and often misunderstood emotion of jealousy.


“I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God...”
God in , NIV

“They used things that are not gods to make me jealous and worthless idols to make me angry. So I will use those who are not a nation to make them jealous; I will use a nation that does not understand to make them angry.” God in Deuteronomy 32:21, NCV

“The meaning of God’s jealousy must be sought in God’s character as the holy One, and it is perhaps a measure of the love and esteem in which he holds creation that the rebellion of a creature infinitely lower than himself could be said to occasion jealousy in him.”
Eerdmans Bible Dictionary, 556

Definition; Jealousy arises when love that rightfully belongs to you is inappropriately, unjustly or disproportionately directed elsewhere; toward another person, place or thing. It’s not coveting, which is simply wanting what others have, and it’s not envy; wishing others didn’t have what they have. Jealousy wants the right thing and, in the right circumstances, is a good emotion. We are, after all, made in the image of a jealous God.

“I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons,[k] neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
, NIV

“Kind jealous doubts