These days the cost of living isn’t getting any cheaper or easier for single parents, government-assisted, and the underpaid working class. The economic divide continues to be a chasm that is steadily growing. The lack of opportunities, income challenges, and struggles to make ends meet can cause some Christians to become envious of others, even the abundance of the wicked.
Psalm 73: 1-3 (KJV) says, “Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. But as for me, my feet had almost slipped; I had nearly lost my foothold. For I envied the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked.”
Psalm 73 speaks about the unsanctified well-to-doers and cautions Christians to beware of the temptation to envy them. The psalmist notes that the lives and comforts of the wicked can appear trouble-free and lavish.
To say that God is less generous to the hard-working and poor than He is to the wicked whose prosperity is ill-gotten is not true. Even though Christians may have less stuff and more problems, Psalm 73 reminds us that unscrupulous people and their possessions should not be envied.
God is good to the unscrupulous rich as well as the faithful poor, or should I say the faithful poor as well as the unscrupulous rich. God made the poor rich in faith because they depend on Him for every morsel or modicum in life. But the wicked depends on their craftiness and deception for their comforts and prosperity.
Satan temps us to envy the wicked’s seemingly untroubled and prosperous lives.
We cannot discern and explain providence’s ways and provisions. There will always be the haves and have-nots relative to worldly things and assets. We honor, trust, and thank God for life and His bestowals, whether little or much because He supplies all of our needs.
If not careful, Christians may be tempted to envy those who knowingly dishonor God but abound in earthly prosperity. God loves and provides for the just and unjust. We are not to ungrateful, judge those who have or those who have not.
Why envy the unjust who knows no shame (Zephaniah 3:5 KJV) in the ways that they acquire their possessions?
How can a Christian be envious of unsanctified people and their prosperity?
Quite easily, according to Psalm 73. The wicked benefit from God’s many providential gifts. Matthew 5:45 (KJV) says, “He [God} maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”
God is good not because Christians declare Him to be so but because He declares and proves it so. God is good without any declaration of gratitude from the just or wicked.
God’s provisions are not ours to approve, divvy up, or disseminate to the good or just and deny to the bad or wicked.
The Psalmist ponders without being pulled in or overcome with the sin of envy because he knows that the wicked’s privileges and earthly wealth are ill-gotten and unsanctified.
The just depends on God, who provides spiritual and earthly needs.
Christians are careful not to envy the wicked and their treasures.
Psalm 84:10 (KJV) says, “I had rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God, than to dwell in the tents of wickedness.”
Matthew 16:26 (KJV) says, For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
Christians are to pray for the just and unjust.
Be safe.