Covetousness is the Opposite of Contentment in God:

I have been really diving into the book, “Future Grace,” by John Piper as of recently.  Through this book, I have been reminded of how to have belief in future grace.  God has shown such grace and mercy all through our lives and the history of the world, so we should have complete faith in God’s goodness and the faith that he will grant us in the future.  Yet there are many times when things in life can distract us from God’s goodness such as pride, desiring control, our anxieties, etc.  

Today I was reading about covetousness.  Oh man, this is something that I personally struggle with a lot.  I have tried really hard not to covet, but it can be so easy to fall into that trap.  I tend to really covet when it comes to other people’s talents and achievements.  For just one example, I am a writer.  I love to write devotional books and I love to write for my blog.  I have slowly been building up my writing career.  It is not my main job, but I dedicate time to it every day.  However, there will be times when I will look and see other people, other women, other young members of society succeeding, relatively more than me, when it comes to their personal writing careers.  I instantly get jealous of them.  I want what they have.  I want their accolades and their views.  I want to be seen by more people. 

Then I need to remember the reason for me writing in the first place.  The reason that I want to become a writer or write books and devotionals is because I love using writing as a way to reflect on my heart and my walk with Jesus and to hopefully help others do the same.  Through writing blog posts I am able to grow closer to God.  Even through this blog post, I am able to reflect on where I stand when it comes to being jealous or covetous.  Then I am hoping others will read my words and be encouraged and maybe sometimes healthily challenged by what I have written.  My main goal is to not make a lot of money or win a lot of awards or gain fame status through my words on a page. 

This brings me to one of the best quotes that I found from this John Piper book, and that is “Covetous is desiring something so much that you lose your contentment in God.”(Future Grace, John Piper, pg.237).  Wow.  It can be easy for me to believe that when I am coveting something of someone else’s that I can covet that item and still be just as close to God. I never thought of them being impacted by each other, but they definitely are.  As the Bible has often said, we can not serve two masters.  We can not be filled with desire for things of this world, while also being filled with desire to completely follow God.  

John Piper will go on to describe all the ways that being covetous and desiring what others have will do nothing but bring us a lot of negative emotions and reactions.  One of the obvious things is that the desiring of other things in this world will never truly satisfy us.  We may believe what we are coveting will completely fill us up, and maybe it will give us a high for a while.  However, then it will quickly fall away and leave us just as unsatisfied as before. 

This coveting of others will lead to falling into other sins.  We have all met that person who will go to any length to get the items that they are desiring, even if it is very harmful to both them and the world or community around them.  They are willing to hurt others and to cause destruction.  At the beginning those who have done that probably didn’t start out with the intention to cause harm, but the jealousy convinced them to cause harm. I have done that with my running and exercising.  I have often been jealous of others who are very strong and very in shape, so I sometimes feel the need to work out extra hard and long so I can be even more fit and strong.  This desire for even more can sometimes lead to a workout related obsession.  

Luke 12:15 is a very good example of remembering to not covet.  It says, “Then He said to them, “Beware, and be on your guard against every form of greed; for not even when one has an abundance does his life consist of his possessions.” The world consists of possessions and accolades, but one’s life should not consist of these possessions and greed.  It is very easy to be distracted by the shiny items that are in other people’s lives, but it is important that we are constantly on guard from the temptation of coveting.

It is important to remember that we shouldn’t be jealous of others.  My challenge for you this week is to spend time reflecting on what you tend to become jealous of when it comes to others.  What is the item that seems to draw you away from God or draw you closer to the items of this world?  It is important to be able to reflect on the items that take us away from God.  It is important to name the sin before we attempt to conquer it.  Then my next challenge for you is to think of one person whom you can talk that through with.  Again, being able to name the sin that you struggle with and being able to talk that through with someone will help you avoid falling into the trap of those jealousies more in the future.