God has been showing me just how jealous he is for my heart, your heart, and the hearts of the lost! Also, note jealousness is not like what we think of as negative emotion but probably more like zealous (here’s a cool study on God as a jealous God, http://bible.org/seriespage/jealous-god). The first revelation is in John 2:13-16. Jesus finds people selling animals for sacrifice and exchanging money (I think from Denaris to the jewish currency for tithing) in the Temple of the Lord. He gets so righteously angry he starts cracking a whip to scare people out!
The temple was the place that housed the Holy of Holies and the presence of God. We know now that our body is a temple of the Lord and the holy presence of God lives inside of us. Now read the verses again with that in mind and it brings a whole new meaning. I think its interesting that what steals a majority of our hearts in life has to do with money (power, wealth, cars, mortgages, payments, etc). I think that this story is an illustration of how jealous God is for our hearts. He doesn’t want us to be drawn to money or have a distracted heart for anything else but he wants us to have a heart fully after Him. He wants it all!
Second revelation of the jealousness of God for his people is in Romans 11:11-12. It talks about the stumbling of the Jews and how because of this, the Gentiles gained salvation. Its crazy to think that God offered salvation to the world, just to make his chosen people, the Jews, jealous so at the appointed time, they will return to Him and fulfill the prophesy of Jeremiah (31:31-34). God is longing for his chosen people to return to him! Of course, this was all His plan from the beginning to get all of his creation to bow down and worship their wonderful Creator. I don’t think that God withheld salvation from gentiles until Jesus came. I think Jesus was the revelation to the world that God’s love is for all and not just for the Jew’s. I’m so thankful that God is jealous for all of our hearts!
(Photo at top is Camille and I lighting candles and praying for missionaries in the Turku Cathedral in Turku, Finland)
My wife and I are currently staffing a Discipleship Training School (DTS) through Youth with a Mission (YWAM). We both love God and are committed to following his will. I enjoys taking photographs of my travels as well as blogging about awesome things God does. To see more photos, visit our gallery. More about Calvin and Camille
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3 Comments
U are så Hansom mister and missis Hanson!
I pray for u my dear friends
HALLELUJAY
// Christian
Christian
3/6/2010
Christian, thanks so much for your prayers. They are definitely felt. We’ll be thinking a lot of our time with you guys as we debreif our whole outreach! I pray that God continues to pour out his wonderful love onto you and your beautiful friends in Malmo! Love you bro
Calvin Hanson
3/8/2010
Waaaaaaahoooooo! you are coming home soon!
Thanks God for being jealous for me!
Melodie
3/9/2010
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