God’s jealousy is stirred up when we run to other things for comfort besides Him. Often God’s judgement towards the Israelites was withholding His Presence and allowing them to run to their own devices for comfort and strength. As shown in the Old Testament, this inevitably led to their destruction, leading them to place low enough to realize their need for Him again. My first thought when I read this for the first time was, "wow, isn’t this manipulative?" Obviously the answer is no, but Let’s look at why:
1. God knows we absolutely need Him to survive
2. God Loves us beyond our comprehension. The amount of pain He can feel when we reject him is proportionate to the incomprehensible Love He feels towards us.
3. God doesn’t want to violate our free will. When we choose anything else other than Him, He allows us to follow our own choices, devices and comfort mechanisms. Even if this causes him incredible pain and rejection sometimes resulting in jealousy and anger.
4. God sees our absolute dire need for Him in the greatest detail, and knows that we will perish without Him. He also knows that withholding His Presence might as well be the same thing as Him bringing a curse upon us because it has the same result (referring to God's judgement over the Israelites).
5. One of the only ways for Him to draw us back to Him, without violating our free will, is to allow us to sink to a place of realization that our own devices do not satisfy our hearts. We enter into a place of desperation where we re-realize our dire need for Him and turn our hearts back to Him again.
The question to ask is, when you love someone intensely but they choose to be with someone else, do you feel jealous? Would that jealousy be more intense because you love the person so intensely? Yet when we do not choose Him, God still allows us, His most cherished sons and daughters to choose our own path despite the anguish it causes Him. What does this say about God's desire to control us (or lack thereof)? What does it say about His Love?
How this applies in the new covenant we enjoy
Jesus knows we are incapable of coping with our condition in our own strength and power (He doesn’t expect us to). If Jesus saw us the way we sometimes negatively see ourselves, He wouldn’t have willingly left His throne to come to Earth to die on a cross. His Love towards us is so intense, that even though He is God, He willingly came to Earth as a weak, feeble, human being to be tortured, beaten, and nailed to a cross. We have heard it many times, but do we really get it? He wants us to come as we are, truly. The Israelites were no where near perfect, yet God's greatest desire was to have them as His treasured people (Deut 14:2). If this was under the Old Covenant, how much more so now under the New Covenant where our sins, weaknesses and imperfections were nailed to the cross? Jesus made sure that there was nothing on His side to separate you from Him and prevent you from having a relationship with Him. So what is stopping or hindering us?
Have you ever been frustrated when you try to encounter Him? I've found that sometimes I want or need God to fix me, heal me, meet my needs more than I want Him. Have you ever come to Him with an agenda? Yes, God absolutely will meet us where we are at. He cares about our needs more than we do. And, if our hearts cry is to go deeper in intimacy with Him, we have to leave agendas at the door. See, intimacy can only happen when both parties simply just want to be with each other--without an agenda. Is it perhaps that we want Him to transform or heal us more than we desire Him. We often come to Him with an agenda, or list of what we want. It is true that He will meet us where we are at. However, if we truly desire to go to a deeper place with Him, our agenda has to be left at the door. When we come to Him we can even put what we perceive to be His goals above the simple fellowship He desires.
Have you ever desired to be close to Him, but feel far from Him because you feel you have fallen or failed? The most effective way back to intimacy with Him is to position ourselves in humility at His feet. Wait upon Him, knowing that He will show up. With great expectation comes great encounters. Your expectation will increase every time as you encounter Him. After all, being with Him was the purpose to begin with (Garden of Eden).
Even in my weakness now, I have great expectation of Him showing up because the more of His closeness I have experienced the more I know His eagerness and desire to be with me. The more I know His eagerness and desire to be with me, the more I trust Him. The more I trust Him the more my soul and spirit are filled with faith in Him. The more I am filled with faith in Him, the more I know Who He is. The more I know Who He is, the more my faith compels me to go tell people about Him and to be a conduit for His Presence to encounter them.
It is the simplicity of just being with Him (His closeness) that we start living the life He created us for. Anything else, ultimately leads us to a spiritual life void of His Presence and riddled by human effort and accomplishment. Human effort and accomplishment fall short of His intended purpose and rarely have any eternal value. But when God does things with you in relationship, it is He that performs most of the work with you. Everything He does is eternal. And because we did it with Him, He gives us the credit for it.
Jesus is after a bride that can be a true partner with Him. For too long the church has operated as the servant girl. She is obedient, serves out of obligation, working so hard to please the Master and to keep the appearance of righteousness by her own strength. Jesus is looking for a bride that is naturally obedient simply because of the Love relationship they share with Him. This only comes through intimacy with Him.
Jesus desires a two-way relationship where He feels safe sharing His needs with us. We have the honor of ministering to His needs and desires. When you have an intimate relationship with Jesus, you get to share in the greatest honor of all: to share in His sufferings (1 Peter 4:13). This is when He starts coming to you and shares His pains, anguishes, and even anger with you and seeks your friendship to minister to His heart. There is no greater purpose, no greater goal, and no greater honor than to be trusted by the Master with His own heart. It is this that brings the highest honor and esteem in heaven. The angels are always ministering to Jesus, but nobody can bring greater comfort or joy to His heart like we can. We are by far His greatest desire. We are the source of His greatest joy.
Do you get it yet? We have the absolute greatest, esteemed honor and privilege, which He has given no other in all of creation, to minister to His heart and to be His best friend. To be the one who comforts Him and is with Him in all that He does. Why else would He want to make Himself One with us, to make His home in us, to go to the greatest lengths to conquer sin and death and remove all separation between us and Him on the cross? Do you get it yet? The good news isn’t just that we are saved from our sin, it is that we have the highest honor in heaven to be the closest companion to Jesus. There is no higher calling than to be the one that God holds in highest esteem as His best friend and closest companion.
Love, Matthew
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