SCRIPTURE READING: MATTHEW 20: 1-16
FOCUS: “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good?” (Matthew 20: 15)
MEMORY VERSE: “Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, and all evil speakings,” (1 Peter 2: 1)
In our Focal Scripture, the householder protested against what he called the evil eye. The labourers who were hired early in the day were unhappy that the householder was generous to the people who came at the eleventh hour. They believed they should have received more by virtue of the longer hours they put in. They felt offended to have been put on the same level as those who came late into the vineyard. They were jealous.
Friend, as you rise in life, and as you grow into the person that heaven destined you to become, be intentional to take your penny and forget about another man’s penny. Don’t be too invested in what is coming to another man and begin to compare same with what is coming to you. Don’t be obsessed with another man’s success or good fortune to the extent of querying why you were not given what they were given.
The labourers hired early in the day became jealous of those who came at the eleventh hour, simply because they were more favoured by the householder. Their jealousy was a response to the favour on other labourers. When you find that others around you are more favoured than you, celebrate them, and celebrate whichever hand that favoured them, but be intentional not to feel bad because they were favoured.
The householder did not take back the favour he extended to the eleventh hour labourers simply because the earlier labourers had a problem with it. Their envy and jealousy did not reverse the favour on their fellow labourers. Celebrate the favour of God on others, and don’t even be tempted to be jealous of others who have been favoured. Ask the ‘Householder’ to favour you rather than get angry because He favoured someone else.
Don’t be jealous or feel entitled to what was done for another man on the basis of favour. It’s okay to desire to be favoured, but it is not okay to be jealous of someone else whom God favoured.
FURTHER READING: 1 PETER 2, JAMES 3
DECLARATION:
- I reject envy and jealousy; I will not be bitter in the face of another man’s favour, in Jesus’ name!
