With Envy Comes Other Sins

“²⁹They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, ³⁰slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, ³¹foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.” — Romans 1:29-31 (ESV)

Even as envy is a small thing and unless acted on, there seems to be little harm in being envious of someone else, but that is a very slippery slope. As I read this morning in Romans, I notice all that tends to go with envy. I see that there is covetousness, deceit, gossips, boastful, foolish, and more. It is too easy to fall into all those other sins and unrighteous behavior when I allow the smallest of things like envy to creep into my mind and heart.

When I start with the envy of someone’s possessions I am giving way to the potential to act on that envy and work toward accumulating at all costs. I will lend myself to not only be envious of the possession, but I will then begin to covet that possession. Then I will use deceit to get it, or if not able to get the possession, I will create gossip or take to slandering the other so as to bring them down. I will engage in ruthless and heartless behavior to obtain the possession and not just for me, but at the expense of the other to somehow lift myself up above them in some way.

I have to be wary of that which is within me so that I am not letting it out. Just the smallest of evil things will bring about larger evil in the long of things. Envy is one of those smaller things than infects and creates larger evil. I have to be in the business of spreading love as opposed to looking for the chance to be placed in a position that others will revere. I have to lift up others, even when that seems to be over my own. I have to stay away from the small things of evil to aid in my staying away from them manifesting into larger evil.

What small things are you allowing in your life that may be leading to larger things? Are you allowing the smaller evil to manifest into the larger evil? What if you were to focus on love and spreading that love as opposed to envy and what comes with it?