08/09/2024 – Our God is a Jealous God
Exodus 34: 14 (for you shall worship no other god, for the Lord, whose name is Jealous, is a jealous God)
Deuteronomy 4: 23 Take heed to yourselves, lest you forget the covenant of the Lord your God which He made with you, and make for yourselves a carved image in the form of anything which the Lord your God has forbidden you. 24 For the Lord your God is a consuming fire, a jealous God.
The first commandment God gave His people was: you will have no other gods before me. God forbids us to love or relate to anyone or anything else the way we love and relate to Him. God even gives the startling warning that He is a jealous God. In fact, God reveals that His jealousy is linked to His name! We praise God for other attributes related to His name, such as provider (Jehovah Jireh) and healer (Jehovah Raffa). This worship is right! But we should also praise God for being Jealous (Jehovah Qanna).
We understand jealousy in human terms, and we associate it with negative emotions. But God is not jealous the way we get jealous. God is jealous for our sake. We should be grateful for this wonderful divine attribute. He is not indifferent when we are unfaithful. He will respond and work to bring us into faithfulness. We must worship and serve God only because ONLY God can save. He is the only one who truly loves us and who cis powerful to save us from our sin! Any affection, any devotion for another “savior” will destroy our covenant relationship with God.
I have heard people ask- why this need for exclusivity? Why not allow people to have an inclusive faith in which they can believe in any god they like and have the freedom to pray to any idol of their choosing? If you need another reason to be faithful to God, remember that His name is Jealous.