Scripture
For you shall not worship any other god, for Yahweh, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God.
~Exodus 34:14, LSB
Quote
God will be the only God or He will not be our God at all.
~C.S. Lewis
The verse above is not the only verse in Scripture that speaks of God’s jealous nature: it is a repeated refrain [Exodus 20:5, Deut. 4:24, 5:9, 6:15, Joshua 24:19]. Jealously has a negative connotation; we usually thing of jealously as a bad thing and quite often this is true, but jealousy is not always bad. It is not a good sign when a husband or wife doesn’t care what the other does. People in love are jealous. People who don’t give a rip are not. Of course we can be jealous to a fault and that will make us insecure, unhappy and manipulative. This sort of jealously can be smothering. It is unhealthy in nature and it makes intimacy impossible. So jealously among humans is almost always bad.
God’s jealousy is pure. He has every right to be jealous: He made us and we belong to Him. He cares what we do and that is a good thing. He is not insecure; he wants us to love our neighbor as much as we love ourselves but He does want us to love Him supremely or above all other people or things. Anything we put above Him becomes a idol and He does not want us worshipping idols. If we are not careful, we will idolize our spouse, a child, even a parent or someone we highly respect. Some idolize celebrities which is even worse. It is OK to love Elvis, so long as you don’t make him a god. Yahweh insist on being our only God.
Think about it: What if God didn’t care who we loved or how much? That would be a problem. The good news is–He does care and He wants to spend quality time with us! He doesn’t want two minutes of our time after we are exhausted from worshipping all our little idols: news paper, TV, recreation, video games, workout, giving support to your kids or grandkids or great grand kids. He wants quality time with you alone. We have to set our priorities so that He comes first.
Extra
Well we are into ball season and it is every night of the week and Saturday we are off on account of the Holiday weekend. We thought we were getting to retire from DHS football but the baby {boss} had other ideas. I think she is thrilled that we have to go.
Lincoln is coming home PTL.
No rain is sight!!!!
Have a great Friday. I hope your team wins. Thank you for reading the blog.
Extra/Extra
It was a day late but June and I got to take a short anniversary excursion. We drove through Salem where June was raised. Her nephew lived in the old home place. It is a beautiful drive in spring or fall but it is as dry up there as it is at Rocky Ford and that is dry. We had to go through Decatur on the way, so we cut through at the Carpenter Plant and went over and hit Lucus Ferry, it will take you all the way to 99 or Buck Island Road. They were shelling corn on Lucus Ferry but so far off the road I could barely see them. We followed 99 around to Good Springs and then on into Anderson. This is where Bro. Hood pastored before he came to Shiloh. They still have the bank, a country store and a couple of dollar stores. We ate at the FISH CREEL on the banks of the Anderson Creek and the food was great. Slaw was best I’ve ever eaten and the hush puppies were good but different. They are under new management. We ordered the small catfish plate but it was so loaded that neither of us could eat it all and it was $20 even. We couldn’t believe it. I told the girls at the register, if it were not an hour drive, I would be back. June wanted me to come back a different way so we went on to Rogersville and took 72 to Athens. The shortest route would be over Wheeler Dam but June hates to cross the dam. I highly recommend the Fish Creel but the drive is a good hour and something I don’t want to do often.