A jealous man is an ineffective man

We are told by God in the Ten Commandments not to covet (or be jealous of) what other people have. Not harboring jealousy is a crucial part of our walk with the Lord, because when we are jealous of others, we do not fully trust in Him.

Jealousy ruins more friendships and relationships than anything else I can think of. When you look closely at the word jealousy there's something vital that stands out.

The feeling of jealousy makes you feel 'lousy'. It is the inability to be happy for someone else's success or blessings in life because of personal insecurities.

Jealousy is an emotion resulting from the belief that another person’s happiness somehow diminishes your own. It's a fear that you might not have or get to experience what someone else has - the fear that there is only a limited quantity of happiness. Thus you must be threatened when good thing happen to others .

An Abundance Mentality maintains that there is "more than enough", and adopts the Win-Win mindset where "we can all achieve more together", and "there's plenty to go around and everyone can enjoy the plenty that we've been given."


Stephen R. Covey explains it well here in his book "The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People":


The Scarcity Mentality is the zero-sum paradigm of life.

People with a Scarcity Mentality have a very difficult time sharing recognition and credit, power or profit - even with those who help in the production. They also have a very hard time being genuinely happy for the successes of other people - even, and sometimes especially, members of their own family or close friends and associates. It's almost as if something is being taken from them when someone else receives special recognition or windfall gain or has remarkable success or achievement.

Although they may verbally express happiness for others' success, inwardly they are eating their hearts out. Their sense of worth comes from being compared, and someone else's success, to some degree, means their failure. Only so many people can be "A" students; only one person can be "number one". To "win" simply means to "beat.


...It's difficult for people with a scarcity mentality to be members of a complimentary team. They look on differences as signs of insubordination and disloyalty.


The Abundance Mentality, on the other hand, flows out of a deep inner sense of personal worth and security. It is the paradigm that there is plenty out there and enough to spare for everybody. It results in sharing of prestige, of recognition, of profits, of decision making. It opens possibilities, options, alternatives and creativity.


The Abundance Mentality takes...personal joy, satisfaction and fulfillment...and turns it outward, appreciating the uniqueness, the inner direction, the proactive nature of others. It recognizes the unlimited possibilities for positive interactive growth and development, creating new Third Alternatives.


Public Victory does not mean victory over other people. It means success in effective interaction that brings mutually beneficial results to everyone involved. ...

Public Victory is an outgrowth of the Abundance Mentality paradigm.


A character rich in integrity, maturity, and the Abundance Mentality has a genuineness that goes far beyond technique, or lack of it, in human interaction."


Reference: Stephen R. Covey, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, pp. 219-230. copyright 2004



If you look at the world from a place of abundance instead of scarcity, it’s actually difficult to become envious.

Jealousy is very ego-based. Those that have feelings of jealousy must first adopt a scarcity mindset that suggests they're in competition with others. If they get something you have wanted then somehow they won and you lost.

True love is never competitive ...

Competition is always based on a limited supply. Win - loose.

You cannot be in competition and in love at the same time.

Love is by definition is limitless

"Love is patient, and kind;

Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.

it does not insist on its own way; it is not irratable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth."

"Jealousy is, I think, the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties"

"Jealousy contains more of self-love than of love".

"If one of two lovers is loyal, and the other jealous and false, how may their friendship last, for Love is slain!"

"He that is jealous is not in love".

Sometimes it seeps into romantic relationships. The fear of losing that person is so great that it paralyzes the relationship and does not let it become authentic and true. "What if's" go through your mind and suddenly knowing that person's every move becomes important because you might be able to stop something terrible from happening, like say them meeting someone else. In the end, it never serves anyone well-it alienates and smothers the person you are trying to keep and hold dear.

Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretense of keeping it alive.

The same happens in friendships too. Often it comes out in the form of judging and analyzing someones motives and becoming suspicious. All of a sudden you're an expert on why they did and said X.... . This can often lead to the dissolution of friendships.

The knives of jealousy are honed on details.

What most don't realize is that jealousy itself is often the root of anger. There are many frustrated people angrily shaking their fists to the heavens because things aren't going as they would like, as they may have planned. They harbor resentment of what another has, and cannot understand why it has not been given to them too.

For those who are interested in a spiritual perspective, God reveals through the Bible that:

"A heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones."
~Proverbs 14:30 KJBV


"Anger is cruel and fury overwhelming, but who can stand before jealousy?" ~Proverbs 27:4 NIV


"And I saw that all labor and all achievement spring from man's envy of his neighbor. This too is meaningless, a chasing after the wind."
~Ecclesiastes 4:4 NIV


James 3:16 says, "For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing."

From this wisdom, we learn that wrong thinking produces wrong living. When we have thoughts of jealousy or feelings of envy, our lives will be characterized by confusion, disorder, and worthlessness. Nothing good comes from an evil and jealous spirit. Dealing with jealousy is essential!


We were all meant to have different experiences and blessings in life, and were not meant to all be imitations of one another in appearance, experiences or possessions. I truly believe that we will only be given greater things and opportunities when we can first be satisfied with not only what we have today, but can also rejoice in someone else's blessings. When the people around us are happy and fulfilled, they’ll naturally spread those feelings to those around them. This is something that we should embrace, not avoid. It is far better to be surrounded by people who are doing better than ourselves in some way than by those who are unhappy.
One of the best questions to ask yourself when experiencing such thoughts is, "What am I really afraid of?"

If your the brightest bulb in the room your in the wrong room ... Scarcity mindset can never abide to have another outshine them, thus all true growth must be stifled

"Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love." Have you ever noticed those who are envious are also relentless? You move on and they continue to follow from afar, hurling insults and questioning your every action. Jealousy is a relentless mistress.

A jealous man is a man fighting only himself, never arriving at the place of his destiny or calling.

The freedom and release a person can experience by embracing an Abundance Mentality and perspective on life and work and relationships can be incredible. The rewards can be incredible.

I leave you with a few more quotes:
"The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves."

"To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter."

"Jealousy is the fear of comparison."

"Jealousy... is a mental cancer."

"The jealous are possessed by a mad devil and a dull spirit at the same time."

"As iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious are consumed by their own passion"


"The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause."

"Sometimes people in your life will try to expose what’s wrong with you because they can’t handle what’s right with you!"

"People would say bad things about you, because it is the only way their insignificant self can feel better than you. "


"A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity."

"Chances are that when someone is hating on you, it’s not about you at all. It’s about them. It’s their fear, their jealously, their boredom, and their insecurity. "

Lastly;

"Jealousy is a terrible disease…Get well soon!"


I would encourage you to consider this concept as you go about your work and personal life, and be observant of the change an Abundance Mentality brings to you and those around you.









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Leaders

It takes a leader to raise up a leader. Followers can’t do it, and neither can institutional programs.

“It takes one to know one, to show one, to grow one.”

The potential of an any organization depends on the growth in its leadership.

If the only reason you appointed him to leadership is because he was a great follower ... You church, reputation and organization are doomed.

Leadership is simply about influencing people. Nothing more, nothing less.
The truest test of a leader is to ask him to create positive change in an organisation.
If he cannot create change, he cannot lead.

Being a leader is not about being first, or being in charge, or being the most knowledgeable ...

Being a leader is not about holding a leadership title.

It’s not the position that makes a leader, but the ability to affect change in those who follow.

A few questions:

If no one is following you, are you still the leader?

If no one is buying into your message or methods, are you still the leader?

Leadership is like a lid or a ceiling on any organization. No church or business will rise beyond the level it's leadership allows. That’s why when a corporation or team needs to be fixed, they fire the leader.


Sadly most religious bodies who struggle under bad leadership continue to decline for years ... You can't fire incompetence in ministry.


LM


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when people no longer matter.

When politics becomes our motivation, people no longer are important.

The pharisees brought the woman who was taken in adultery, not because they cared about the woman, but because they were looking for a political cause against Jesus.

Jesus whole ministry was about ministering to the people.

He healed them, He fed them, He went out of His way to meet them where they lived.

He said " let him who would be greatest be your servant".


He was all about meeting the needs of lost humanity.

He has left His body (the church) in the world today, to reach the world with the gospel.

When politics and position becomes our motivation, people no longer matter.


This woman "was taken in the very act."

Jesus never deserted or abandoned her...

In His mind it was about her.

The politically correct thing to do was to shun her, ignore her..


Principle should always trump politics.

When a leader fails

When a leader fails

I’ve been thinking about leadership and hypocrisy lately, particularly in small beginnings. When a great leader starts his journey, small decisions present themselves. Who that leader is in the smallest, most unnoticed decisions is actually who he is in the larger ones.

You don’t become disingenuous overnight. You begin the slide toward hypocrisy and duplicity by choosing to fudge once, then again, then again. You begin to see yourself as invincible once you’ve succeeded in those little sins, then believe your own press that because you are helping people, you can slip here and there.
But eventually truth wins out.

"All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely."

When we taste power, we have a choice. We can choose to continue to make wise decisions no one sees, or we can fudge a little and justify. We can ask others to hold us accountable, to grant transparency in everything we do, or we can bully and hide our increasingly corrupt decisions. We can open our hearts to naysayers, really listening, or we can vilify anyone who questions us.
So how do we respond when a big leader let’s us down?

5 Choices.

1. See their story as a cautionary tale. None of us is outside the reach of temptations lure. We may say that we have utter integrity, but we forget how clay-footed we are.
Every new story should remind us that truth exists and pushes its way to the surface eventually. We cannot cover it up. To do so is like submerging a beach ball in the ocean for a lengthy period of time. Eventually our strength to suppress our antics subsides, and the truth pops up.

2. Make good choices in the darkness. Jesus said, “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much” (Luke 16:10).

There’s no such thing as a fallen leader who made one bad, big decision. It started first with little white lies, small deceits, and underground dalliances. You always have the choice to be honest in small things, and those small decisions prepare you to have integrity as you face bigger decisions.

3. Learn to forgive. Almost every failure I know of befell a man who could not or would not let others repent or start a new. The greatest promise of the gospel is the promise of re-birth.

2 Corinthians 5:17
Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Wearing the failures of yesterday into today is like wearing the clothes you wore in high school for the rest of your life. At some point they don't fit and you look silly.
So is continually wearing yesterday's failures into the future.

Let your enemies change their clothes! They are not what they were yesterday either. Quit demanding they remain what they once were.

Most of the fallen leaders I am aware of, have made a living of demonizing and vilifying those who disagreed with them or somehow fell out of favor with their leadership.

Forgiving others is one of the greatest lessons you can learn
Jonah 2:8
"They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy."

Those creative lies we tell ourselves to keep the fight going, ultimately hurt ourselves more than they do those we wish harm upon.

4. Be daring enough to hear criticism, then swallow and digest it. Don’t spout off your initial reaction, but rein it in. Even if someone confronts you and 90% of what they say is wrong (in your eyes), accept it graciously, then determine to heed the 10%.

Your enemies and critics will tell you what your friends never would. Hidden in their lies and misrepresented tales is some truth!

5. Don’t allow one leader’s demise to demoralize your confidence in the gospel. This life is an ironman triathlon, not a hundred-yard dash. A leader falling is one part of the journey. Learn from their mistakes.

Grieve. Get mad. But persevere.

If you’ve been personally affected by the fallen leader, seek to work through your difficulty. In time, walk in forgiveness– considering yourself!

Galatians 6:1
1 Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual, restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.

The greatest lesson is humble, silent and honest self examination.

LM
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