DEATH BY ENVY

If you want to share this blog with a friend go to the bottom of day’s content and click on TELL A FRIEND

 

GO TO NEIL’S OTHER BLOG ONE A DAY, YOUR SPIRITUAL VITAMINS and read the following brain teasers.  CLICK ON URL BELOW There are over 600 stories and commentaries on this blog. It is added to daily.

http://oneadayyourspiritualvitamins.blogspot.com/ 

Galatians 5:26

Let us not become conceited, provoking and envying each other.

It wasn’t until the late 16^th century that the egregious sins we humans are prone to commit most often were compiled into a list. Pope Gregory the Great was the author.  And envy is certainly one of the worst of these listed Seven Deadly Sins.

Proverbs 14:30 explains envy this way.  “A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones.” 

It is a double-edged sin for it works its evil against both self and one’s fellowman. And the wound it makes can be deadly.

 They were two shopkeepers and they were bitter rivals.  Each day they looked at their competitor’s store across the street and thought selfish, envious thoughts.

They even went so far as to actually hire men to keep track of how many customers the other had each day.  

And at day’s end, would measure their own success by whether they had the larger number of customers. 

And each night, the loser could not sleep.

Then one night, an angel appeared to one of the shopkeepers and said, “I will give you anything you ask, but whatever you receive, your

St. Thomas Aquinas points out that it is the exact opposite of mercy.

Indeed, it is self-love fueled by fear, insecurity, and jealousy for envy cannot bear to see others prosper.   

It makes some ministers lost and ineffective when they are not able to handle the fact they have not been called to larger churches.

It makes congregational members hurt and angry when they think someone else is receiving

more attention.

It makes choir members act blindly and foolishly when they cannot sing solos.

Now, this is not true of all choir members, or all ministers or all congregational members, but within the sanctuary of the Lord, it is true more often than it should be.

This green-eyed monster wants the object of its envy to start living in a world of minus while it lives in a world of plus. 

When you come right down to it, envy really is quite evil, taking otherwise good Christians and making them not so very good at all.

Click on the URL below to WATCH NEIL IN HIS WORLD FAMOUS ONE MAN DRAMATIZATIONS OF ABRAHAM LINCOLN, BEN FRANKLIN, CHARLES WESLEY AND MARTIN LUTHER

CLICK ON THE FOLLOWING

 

http://www.speakerneil.com/

V. Neil Wyrick’s ninth book THE SPIRITUAL ABRAHAM LINCOLN and is available at MAGNUS PRESS

AVAILABLE ON AMAZON.COM’S Kindle

http://www.magnuspress.com/OurProducts2.html