On the one hand, we read in the Bible that “you shall not worship any other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God” (Exodus 34:14). On the other hand, the Bible also makes it clear that it IS wrong for us to be jealous. “Let us behave properly as in the day, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual promiscuity and sensuality, not in strife and jealousy” (Romans 13:13).

Those Scriptures are just examples. Over and over the Bible condemns our jealously as a sin, and yet it also describes God as being a jealous God. Is that a contradiction? Is there a different standard of right and wrong for us than there is for God Himself?

I think I can clear this entire problem up, so stick with me for a few minutes. The first step is to understand what jealousy is. Here is a very good definition: “A strong feeling of possessiveness, often caused by the possibility that something which belongs, or ought to belong, to one is about to be taken away.”

We get jealous when we fear losing something that we think we deserve to have. We might fear losing a person (a relationship) or a material thing. The Bible warns us against having “… bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart….” (James 3:14) because “where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing” (James 3:16).

That is why jealousy has always been such an ugly word. Shakespeare called it “the green-eyed monster” in his play Othello. Human jealousy smacks of self-centeredness, suspicion, and doubt. We would do well to ask ourselves the questions that Paul asked proud religious people in his day, “For who regards you as superior? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as if you had not received it?” (1 Corinthians 4:7).

Since we see the evil of jealousy–grabbing all we think we deserve and hanging on to it no matter what–how can it be right for God to be jealous?

Here is one big difference between God and us: Everything rightfully belongs to Him. “The earth is the Lord’s, and all it contains, the world, and those who dwell in it” (Psalm 24:1). “O Lord, how many are Your works! In wisdom You have made them all; the earth is full of Your possessions” (Psalm 104:24).

Since everything already belongs to our Creator—we don’t really own anything. “God’s jealousy means that God continually seeks to protect His own honor.”

[Systematic Theology By Wayne Grudem Page 205] It would be wrong for God to do anything else.

God’s jealousy is not like ours. God is jealous like a powerful and merciful king who takes a poor broken girl out of the hood, forgives her, marries her, and gives her the privileges of a queen. That is one way to picture what Jesus has done for sinful creatures like you and me.

British Pastor Charles Spurgeon explained it this way: “Did [God] not choose you? He cannot bear that you should choose another. Did He not buy you with His own blood? He cannot endure that you should think you are your own, or that you belong to this world. … He stripped himself to nakedness that He might clothe you with beauty; He bowed his face to shame and spitting that He might lift you up to honor and glory, and He cannot endure that you should love the world, and the things of the world.”

Our true and lasting happiness can begin only when we admit that God SHOULD jealously protect His honor, and that we exist to exalt His marvelous glory. This is why you and I are alive. “Everyone who is called by My name, and whom I have created for My glory, whom I have formed, even whom I have made” (Isaiah 43:7). Because of all God is, He can boldly declare, “… My glory I will not give to another” (Isaiah 48:11).

Charles Spurgeon also explains another way we can respond–the wrong way: “…as sin boasts, ‘I will not keep God’s law,’ self-righteousness exclaims, ‘I will not be saved in God’s way; I will make a new road to heaven; I will not bow before God’s grace; I will not accept the atonement which God has wrought out in the person of Jesus; I will be my own redeemer; I will enter heaven by my own strength, and glorify my own merits.’”

I pray that you will humbly accept the truth that God deserves to jealously guard His honor and that God created us to worship and serve Him. When we do this, we will experience the joy of being able to do what we were made to do. We will understand God’s goodness. We can then say with the angels, “Worthy are You, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power; for You created all things, and because of Your will they existed, and were created” (Revelation 4:11).