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"Envy denies grace. The assumption of envy is that we deserve what another has been given, when, in fact, you and I deserve nothing. Envy is self-focused and self-righteous. It inserts you into the center of your world. It makes it all about you. It tells you that you deserve what you don't deserve. Envy is expectant and demanding. Envy tells you that you are someone you aren't and you are entitled to what is not rightfully yours. Envy cannot celebrate the blessing of another because it tells you that you are more deserving. Envy forgets who you are, forgets who God is, and is confused about what life is all about. Yet, having said all of that, the fact is that all of us struggle with envy somehow, some way, and at some time. Envy is universal because sin is. Envy is self-focused; because it is self-focused, it's entitled; because it's entitled, it's demanding; because it's demanding, it tends to judge the goodness of God by whether he has delivered what you feel entitled to; and because it judges God I that basis, it leads you to question his goodness. Because you question God's goodness, you won't run to him for help. Envy is a spiritual disaster. Grace reminds you that you deserve nothing, but it does not stop there - it confronts you with the truth that God is gloriously loving, gracious, and kind, that he lavishes on us things we could never have earned. Grace also reminds us that God is wise and he never gets a wrong address - he gives each of us exactly what he knows we need. For further study and encouragement: James 3:13-18 (New Morning Mercies: a Daily Gospel Devotional by Paul Tripp)
