The Bible tells us that God says He is a jealous God. This statement can be confusing because we think of jealousy in terms of how the world defines it. But what God is saying here is different from the selfish worldly jealousy we know. The world defines jealousy as fiercely protective or vigilant of one’s possessions. But let us look at what God is talking about when He speaks of Himself as a jealous God.

An Excerpt from the Commandments

Exodus 20:1-6

And God spoke all these words, saying,”I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.”You shall have no other gods before me. “You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth. 

 You shall not bow down to them or serve them, for I the Lord your God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.

God says here that we should not worship anything except for Him. He reminds us later on in Exodus of the same point of not worshipping any other god in place of Himself (Exodus 34:14).

Paul shows us that God is jealous because He has betrothed us (2 Corinthians 11:2). He has made us His own. Therefore, just as one wife is to be faithful to that one husband, we are to be faithful to the one God through Christ. Paul goes on to tell the people that he is afraid they will be deceived and led astray away from Christ (2 Corinthians 11:3). Similarly, God warned Israel His people to not be deceived and led away from Him. His jealousy tells us that we cannot look to any other in place of or more significant than God, or else we will be led away from Him. And once we are led away from God, we begin to get swept into everything that is against Him. So, no wonder the consequence of His jealousy is a consuming fire (Deuteronomy 4:24) that can fall upon many generations to come. When we find ourselves on the evil side, we will be consumed by fire.

When I look at the meaning of jealous in the Bible, it says, “only of God” and “not bearing any rival”. There is no other like Him, He is the almighty God who is good and gracious to us. This tells me that we should never equate any other (thing or being) equal or even close to Him. We can only have one God. It seems to imply that you can only serve Him alone or not at all. We need to put Him first, and nothing else can share that place in our hearts for Him. There is no room for any other godly figure when we put God on the throne in our hearts. Its as if jealous means that there is only space for Him alone in our hearts, and when we try to serve other things, worship other things, think and act as if there are other priorities above Him, we are rejecting Him. We push Him out of our hearts, and then we get deceived and sucked up into the things of the world moving further and further away from God.

I believe that God is telling us that He is a jealous God because we cannot serve anyone or anything alongside Him. And once we get distracted, we will lose Him. He is saying this for our good so that we will follow Him wholeheartedly, and through doing this, we will be made whole and be able to love and show the love of God to all.

All photos were taken by Kyle or Vani. These photos are from the many adventures we have been blessed to experience together. We are so grateful for every blessing from God. No filters were used nor were the photos edited except for an occasional crop. We hope you enjoy.