The Evils of Envy: The Cancer of the Soul

The Evils of Envy: The Cancer of the Soul

August 19, 2025

Host: Hon. Sam Rohrer

Guest: Len Crowley

Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 8/19/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.

Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, thanks for joining us on another edition of Stand In the Gap. Today I am your host, Jamie Mitchell, director of church culture at the American Pastor’s Network. Recently I was at a pastor’s gathering and we began to have a time of prayer and one of the brothers sitting in my circle shared with me a burden he had for a number of people in his flock affected by cancer. He opened the floodgates and one by one pastors began airing their own concerns. The last brother shared that two weeks prior he had had a tumor removed from his colon. For some reason, I am hearing more and more of this deadly disease. Did you know some facts about cancer? It’s kind of fascinating. The most common forms of cancer is not lung, breast or colon cancer. It’s a non-melanoma skin cancer. Most people have that. The most deadly form is pancreatic cancer.

That’s sad. I just heard of someone the other day who has that. The state with the highest occurrence is Kentucky, the lowest occurrence New Mexico. I think one of the most difficult things about cancer is that you may have it and it may be spreading in your body and you have no clue what’s happening. It’s silent, it’s hidden. That’s what makes it so evasive and equally hard and somewhat related is it is often a slow death. Loved ones watch the afflicted wither away. Now obviously our prayers go to anybody who’s fighting cancer yet today what we want to talk about is equally a distressing cancer and that is a spiritual one in its nature and it’s killing many churches and many individuals, many pastors, and I think it’s killing society and it’s the sin of envy. The simple definition of envy is a feeling of discontent or resentful, longing, aroused by someone else’s possessions, qualities, relationships, or status.

You see, much like cancer, you could look and interact with somebody and be completely unaware of the deeply felt envy in their heart. Worse is that unaware. It is creeping. This life draining resentment is just brewing inside of them. And today we want to take a deep dive on the subject of envy, what God’s word has to say with it and its long reaching effects on our personal lives, family, churches, society, and our title is simply this, the Evils of Envy, the Cancer of our Soul. And to help me as a time friend, Reverend Len Crowley. Len’s been with us before. He’s been a pastor for decades now. Served pastors in his role as the international director for the sixth four fellowship and we’re going to talk about that ministry later on. Len, welcome back to Stand in the Gap.

Len Crowley:

Jamie. Thanks man. It’s good to be with you again. We talked earlier about the fact that this is 40 years for us. We’ve been doing this since 1985. It’s great to be

Jamie Mitchell:

With you again. It’s a long time. I like to say I have pairs of shoes longer than I have some friends, but that’s not true, but that’s good. We’re glad you’re with us and especially I think some insights that you’re going to be able to give us. Len, when you hear the word envy, what do you think of and from your experience working with God’s people, is it a real problem that we should be concerned about? So much so to give a whole hour program to this issue of the evils of envy?

Len Crowley:

Yes, I do. As a matter of fact, as you were talking about the notion of cancer and the reality that we don’t even see or know or experience or feel, the symptoms of cancer envy and things like that can be masked by all kinds of emotion. In fact, as an emotion itself, it might be so subtle, so deeply held. We’re not self-aware at all that we hold it because we’re unaware of maybe some of the signposts that should tell us or some of the feelings that we should be aware of. And as a result of not knowing what those diagnostic tell points are, we just blow right on through life carrying it and then reacting because of it without really understanding why we do it. And I think the core of the issue is something we need to go deeply back to the original sin notion that God is not good and if Satan could deceive a perfect being eve by really saying God is withholding from you something you want or should want, the envy jump to the forefront just immediately in the very beginning. We have it starting and so begins to play out in all kinds of ways and it talks about it in other parts of scripture. We’ll get to that, but it really is important to talk about it so you know what it is when it comes on you.

Jamie Mitchell:

It’s interesting, Len, both as pastors, we’ve worked with God’s people and now we both work with pastors exclusively. Listen, God’s people and pastors are not exempt from the envy virus, are we?

Len Crowley:

Well, no. I mean really when you think about it, it comes back to the notion of discontent and I think it’s built out of our emotional makeup as human beings. Someone’s properly said there were five sort of key emotions, gladness or glad, sad, mad anger and then fear and shame and in there anger and fear often can be masks for envy or envy can express anger and fear. It’s a very interesting dynamic and I hope we’ll be able to surface some things in the balance of our time to help folks be aware and when they see it, to stop and take a good look at themselves and realize, hey, this too is a forgiven sin, but let’s deal with it.

Jamie Mitchell:

One of the things that I was thinking about this morning getting ready for the program was how much we compare ourselves to others and it really serves as almost a seed for envy. I mean with things like the internet and media and being able to see what other people have and get and do, that is the spark that starts to flame the envy problem in all of us, isn’t it? That whole issue of comparing

Len Crowley:

Preexisting conditions for that spark to ignite a fire, and I’m sure we’ll talk about that in the next segment.

Jamie Mitchell:

I’ve been saddened at times watching the wrangling between ministers when they see another minister succeeding. We are to weep with those who weep and we are to rejoice with those who rejoice. We have no problem weeping, do we, Lyen? But we have a real problem cheering on and being happy for other people. Isn’t that correct?

Len Crowley:

As I said, we do this all the time, pastor’s conferences. First question is how big is your church? And we set ourselves up

Jamie Mitchell:

As soon as we start talking nickels and noses. How big is your budget? How many people, people on staff, and what kind of house you have, what kind of car you drive? Well, we’re going to get to the bottom of this when we get back, we’re going to start to go deep into this subject of envy. We’re going to see what the Bible says about it and the consequence of this sin. You may not think you’re an envious person, but hopefully if there is that in your heart today, we’re going to surface it, point you to the Lord and see freedom come into your life. Well, thank you for staying with us as we consider a very important spiritual issue and that is envy. It’s a powerful emotion. We deny we have it. We may not even know we have it, but it’s deep down in our soul, it’s probably not the topic you thought you would be considering today, yet as we will see, it impacts all of us more than we realize and many of the relationships that we have, Len Crowley is my guess. Len, just so our audience is fully aware of the insidious nature of envy being a Bible teacher as you are, take us through a number of examples from God’s word where we see envy at work

Len Crowley:

Way back even before the beginning, and maybe I should say as a prelude here, if you think you’re not envious, you’re denying the reality. You’re not self-aware. We are fallen broken beings and we have all kinds of predilection to sin. Satan, Lucifer in his original cast was the most perfect, glorious, wondrous, created being ever in the universe, and yet he still wanted more. He wanted to be like God. Isaiah 14 talks about, I will supplant God, I will rise up and be more than him. I will sit on his holy throne. I mean this is what Isaiah reflects in chapter 14. He’s simply grasping for what he does not have. Somehow if I didn’t get something and I want it, then that’s envy right there. Cain does that with his brother Abel, right? I mean basically he’s the one without the blessing. Abel is given the blessing.

Cain doesn’t get a blessing, and so he kills his brother because his brother has what he wants even though it’s ephemeral and it immediately flies away, you get the leadership issues showing up in the people of Israel all through the time of the Exodus, the golden calf was mentioned, the simple realities that they want to go back to Egypt rather than take the leadership that God wants to give them the way he wants it. And then you have Cora trying to usurp Moses’s position of leadership. And if we think, well, that’s all Old Testament stuff and there’s bad examples, move all the way to the last supper. Here’s Jesus in his most glorious moment, reflecting on the final task to embed into the lives of those 12 men, the reality of the gospel, the reality of what is ahead for them, all that they must do, all that they must be, and what are they talking about?

Who’s going to be the greatest in the kingdom? I mean right there, that’s not a very good start for the Lord’s men. This is what comes. So we’re seeing this all the time in comparing in competition, as we mentioned at the end of the last section, the reality of looking at other or other people’s churches and saying, well, they’ve got something we don’t have. We need to go get that. Sometimes there’s really good sharing and lots of collaboration, but the fact is, at core I see something I want, I can’t get it. I want to go get it. I must have it. Now again, it shows up in a very subtle way. I acknowledge that that person may be more gifted or in a different place, but the reality is it still continues to surface. And if I’m not aware of its presence, I might deny it and blow right past those stop signs.

And I think one of the things that we also could talk about now is all the technology and all that the culture throws at us, just plays to that surfacing of those ideas of envy and comparison and competition and discontent in our souls. I mean, all of advertising is to make us discontent, but it’s all distracting too. So we’re unaware of our discontent and we say in our ministry all the time, pastors don’t or Satan doesn’t have to destroy pastors, he just has to distract them and we’re distracted all the time. So envy’s clearly alive and well and living in our bones, but we may not be fully aware of its impact number one, and the way that it appears and manifests itself in our behavior and our words and our thoughts.

Jamie Mitchell:

One of the passages of scripture that really drove this home for me and the deadly impact of envy is James chapter three verses 14 through 16. Let me read them for us. But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition, there it is in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. This is not wisdom that comes down from above, but it’s earthly, unspiritual, demonic for where jealousy and selfish ambition exists. There will be disorder and every vile practice, James says, all kinds of chaos, every evil practice flows from envy, bitter jealousy. You have something that I don’t. You have something that I want selfish ambition, don’t get in my way. I am going to run you over to get that. Glenn, if James saw it manifesting in the lives of believers in the early church, this must be manifesting itself today. How does the wisdom of James chapter three inform us as believers, as pastors, as leaders of this deadly sin of envy?

Len Crowley:

Yeah. Well, again, the first thing is to be self-aware. The reality is it is subtle. We think of envy and we think of these words that James uses, disorder, evil practice, chaos, all that stuff, ambitious. And we have the green-eyed monster. Our mind’s eye, it’s not that big in the way we experience it, it’s subtle, it’s quiet, it’s easy, and I’m going to throw one at you that we may not have thought about, but there’s a place at beginning in Acts chapter five, two co-conspirators, husband and wife named Ananias and Saphirazz, and we know the story. They sell a piece of land, they give a portion of the money and they say, this is the whole price. We gave everything, we gave it all. And that was a lie. And well, it’s kind of a small thing. I mean it’s just over amplifying. It’s a little exaggeration.

It’s kind of a white. And the question might be firstly one, why would they do that? Why would they do that? What would motivate them to disregard the call to be people of the truth, which is really the underlying very serious issue. They’re bringing pretense into the church. They’re saying it’s okay to lie by their behavior. It’s okay to exaggerate and amplify something that isn’t. So what would’ve motivated them to do that? I want to suggest that the Holy Spirit has given us an example of something where some person who’s done it right in the previous chapter, end of chapter four, we see a man named Barnabas who sells a piece of land and gives the property, gives an amount of money, doesn’t say how much it is, gives an amount of money to the church, and he gets a cool nickname, a son of encouragement.

I don’t know if they wanted to get a cool nickname or they wanted to be elevated in their eyes of their peers or simply to be seen as generous when in fact they weren’t. But all of that is a manifestation of envy. I see Barnabas getting accolades. I see the church giving him credits and he’s well regarded, gets a cool nickname. Hey, let’s do the same thing he did and give the money to the church and we’ll keep a little back for ourselves, but that’s no big deal because it’s ours anyway, but we’ll say we gave it all and that’ll make us look really generous. Does that show up anywhere in our culture today? Maybe that’s too convicting. Maybe that’s too convicting.

Jamie Mitchell:

Well, here’s the thing, Lynn, that passage in James chapter three, I’ve become so sensitized to it When I talk to other pastors and they start to describe the problems that they’re having in their church and some of the betrayals or the upheavals or the struggles or the conflicts, they are looking at the conflict. I’m looking at the heart behind the conflict, and this just may be me, but I’m telling you when I hear about the upheaval conflict disorder in the church, I start then asking the question, where is the NV virus? Who has it? What heart has been gripped with envy and that’s causing the turmoil? We got about 30 seconds. Len, as a pastor, you must’ve seen conflict in the church. Did it go back to envy at times?

Len Crowley:

Well, I don’t know that it didn’t go back to envy all the time. And reality is we live in a competitive kind of culture and I think that we don’t understand how culpable we are that when a person is well regarded for behaving a certain way, we make that the model. We make that the example. If his motive is false, if his motive is wrong, we may end up picking up the motive without realizing it, and that just bleeds into everything else. And so what we’re seeing in conflict is the manifestation of the behavior, the evil practice that is the outcome of the envy that James is warning us against. Here comes the disorder. Here comes the evil practice, chaos and evil. The origin is selfish

Jamie Mitchell:

Ambition. Well, I’m feeling the Holy Spirit convict me at times when I allow envy to capture my heart, envy spreads, it affects others. When we return, we’re going to consider this issue and how we see envy affecting society. Don’t go anywhere, stay with us here. Stand in the depth today. Well, welcome back. We’re having a deep discussion about a deadly sin, the sin of envy, also known as resentment, jealousy, selfish ambition, greed, bitterness, and good old fashioned coveting. We’ve seen it in the Bible. We acknowledge its widespread nature of this sin in the hearts of many of all of you and me and Lynn Crowley, my friend, he’s here with us. Lynn, one of the things that has led me to look at envy as a major issue in the lives of Christians and really throughout the world is the problem of division and disunity. Again, James writes about this right after pointing out the sin of bitter jealousy and its fruit, he asks a rhetorical question, where do all the quarreling and fighting come from? Obviously envy was the source. Len, can you describe the anatomy of envy and why it’s so divisive and why does it cause conflict in relationships?

Len Crowley:

Well, it’s obviously a big subject, Jamie. I love the fact that you used the word anatomy of envy. I guess I’d like to take us to one particular component of our understanding of who we are in Christ. We are members of one another. We are members of a single body. Paul uses the body illustration as a really profound means of apprehending how we all fit together. We’re all different. We’re all unlike one another, and yet we are bound together because of the love and wonder of Christ. And Paul talks about the envy that could go on even in the midst of a body of Christ. He talks about the eyes and says, if you’re not an eye, you’re an ear and you complain that you’re not an eye. What’s wrong? That’s a mistake on your part. We have different functions, we have different roles, and what’s critical I think, is to recognize, to be content with our own place, with our own giftedness, with our circumstance, the body illustration.

I’m built a certain way. I’m gifted in a certain way. I may not be an eye, I might be a pancreas, but if I’m envious of the eye because the eye gets all kinds of attention, gets all kinds of stimuli, and the pancreas is in the deep dark bowels of my body just pumping away, doing its thing, keeping me alive and I’m envious of something else, I’m completely disregarding the importance of who I am in the body of Christ. So I think as I said, discontent is a big deal here, and to find and understand contentment for where I am and how I’ve been gifted is critically important to realize you can live without eyes. You can be blind in one eye, but you can’t live without a pancreas. So what’s more important, the pancreas or the eyes? Well, of course that’s irrelevant. We are all one in Christ and there is one king, one faith, one family.

If there’s ever anything that distracts us from desiring to be together with people, to be in competition instead of in collaboration, that’s the signature of envy. That’s what shows up in our lives and we should simply be aware of that, acknowledge it, confess it, ask for forgiveness, be satisfied with the gifting that I have, and to be that kind of person to be whoever I am gifted in a particular way, not entitled to something else. That’s the discontent I’ve been gifted. What do we have that hasn’t been gifted to us in spiritual gifts, in physical characteristics, in space and time and place on the planet? It’s all a gift that certainly some have great advantages in this realm, but the reality is it’s all been gifted to us, so we’re not entitled to anything else. Discontent is a great sin and envy is a great sin if it emerges from discontent because we’re saying to God, you made a mistake. You didn’t give me what I should have gotten, and it’s disregarding the wonder. Yeah,

Jamie Mitchell:

This idea of discontent. You’ve led right into something I want to talk about. I don’t want this to become a political discussion. However, you don’t have to look far to notice that at the core of the philosophies of Marxism and socialism and communism, there needs to be the stoking of discontent. There needs to be the setting of flame of envy in people’s hearts for people to embrace, accept, allow for vote for people who are Marxists, socialists, communists. Am I right on that? What role does envy play in some of those wicked philosophies that we see coming to America?

Len Crowley:

Sure. Well, obviously all of sin is me oriented. I’m looking out for me. But when you have a culture, and I won’t say capitalism plays to it, it has its own downside, but the reality is you don’t see in Marxist or a socialist or communist countries or philosophies, the donations, the giving, the philanthropy that you see in under our order of government and our kind of capitalist system simply because it’s all about me getting my share. I want my share from the larger pie. Well, in other situations, it forces us to look to the poor and to help them and to do so out of the goodness of our heart. Jesus said to us, the poor you will always have with you. I think he said that because he intends that to be the case so that we are constantly aware that we must get outside ourselves and serve our fellow man.

This is the shame of the disciples sitting around the table arguing about who’s the greatest. Jesus said, if you’re going to be the greatest in the kingdom, you’ll be servant of all. This is precisely what begins to disinfect us from envy is to begin serving one another out of devotion, out of devotion to Christ, out of caring for the poor, out of caring for people with our gift, give them our gift regardless of whether they receive it well or it has an impact. We’re honoring the giver when we do that. The best way we say thank you to God is to exercise the gift that he’s given us, the place in his family, the place in his body to demonstrate his reality to a watching world and that demands that we’re self-aware enough of our sinfulness and our ambition and our envy that shows up so we can overcome it and overcome it by the presence of the spirit to give grace and ourselves to other people.

Jamie Mitchell:

Len, I heard somebody explain political philosophies this way that you have a wall and a ladder is put up on the wall and you have two choices. You want to get over that wall and you see somebody climbing up that ladder, you either pull them down or you climb over them and on top of them to get to the top of the wall or you help push them up. Or if you’re above them, you reach back and help pull them over with you. I think that is an incredible visual picture of the issue of envy as being played out in society. You’re either encouraging and pushing people up to make themselves better and to encourage them or give them a hand up and help pull them up, not do it for them, but help them get up the ladder or you’re going to climb over them or you’re going to drag them off the ladder so that you can get to the top of the heap. And at the end of the day, we see this issue of envy playing out politically in how people are pushing these philosophies to gain power. They’re turning people against each other. It’s an amazing thing to watch, isn’t it?

Len Crowley:

And again, we’re dealing with the symptoms of envy, aren’t we? Because the behaviors that James talks about in chapter three is evident when there’s all this disorder and when there’s jealousy and when there’s chaos and when there’s arguing and when there’s division and when there’s disunity, we need to realize, let’s go back to the original source. It’s the me demand, it’s the discontent, it’s the I want what you have or I don’t have it, I want it. And if I can’t get it, then I’m at least making sure you don’t get it too. So in large measure, this is the function of sin embodied within us and it’s plays itself out in philosophies and economics and religion in all kinds of different, in education, in every sphere of life, we are bombarded by things that will invite us to be discontent and therefore envy. And out of that will emerge a series of behaviors. If we do not stop it in its tracks, a series of behaviors that will inevitably bring about a certain kind of outcome that is chaotic and divisive and disunity. And how then do we demonstrate to a watching world that Christ is love and grace and one that he is the forgiving God. If we don’t forgive one another, if we don’t have care and wonder about unity among unlike people, the world has nothing to see in us that attracts them to Christ.

Jamie Mitchell:

Amen. Amen. Friends, let me just encourage you as you’re listening to the news, you’re watching people in politics today listen to their words. If they are stoking the fires of envy, run from them. Listen, we live in an age of upheaval and division factions, and at the core of the problem is the sin of envy. We see it everywhere if you’ll look for it. And when we conclude today’s program, we want to give some remedies for envy. So don’t leave us, stick with us for this last segment here at Stand in the Gap Today. I can’t believe how fast an hour flies by each day. We come to this last segment of today’s program on envy and its deadly consequences. So appreciate Len Crowley being our guest. Len, before time is gone, take a minute and share about the six four fellowship and the good work that you’re doing among God’s ministers.

Len Crowley:

Thanks, Jamie. Yeah, the six four fellowship, it focuses on the mandate for ministry that emerges early in the Church of Christ, the history of Christ’s church in chapter six of the Book of Acts. And in chapter six, verse four, hence the name, the six four fellowship, Peter says, we will continue, meaning this is our job description, this is our task, this is our focus, this is our priority. We will continue in prayer and the ministry of the word. And it’s our contention that many people in North America in particular are well-trained in seminaries and in other places in the word of God. And we know that we must exe and we must expose and we must understand. And so we have lots of study tools and lots of helps and lots of training in the arena of presenting the word of God to the people of God.

And that’s a major task that pastors undertake in a weekly and sometimes more often time. But we’re not so well prepared in the issue in the arena of prayer. We think that’s something we’ve neglected inappropriately. We’re not as trained nearly as well in prayer. So for many people that I knew, certainly at seminary, and I’m one of them, I learned all about, I have all kinds of classes in the Bible and how to study the Bible and how to interpret the Bible and how to preach the Bible, but I had no classes on prayer. And so prayer becomes kind of an ad hoc thing. We pray as we watch other people pray. We pray because the way other people pray is we think, well, that’s how you do it. And it’s our contention that if we go back to scripture again and look at what it says to us as pastors, we have two wings to fly our plane.

One is prayer and one is the word. Well, if the prayer wing isn’t not attached or it’s improperly played or non-existent, I don’t know how you can fly the plane. So it’s our contention. We should go back to the text in particular and find out how do we pray The way Jesus taught us to pray, the only thing the disciples ever asked was teach us to pray. And so he does in Matthew chapter six, he says, pray like this, and that’s a command. By the way, he says, pray this way. This is not a suggestion. This is how you pray. And it seems that there is an upward movement. First, almost like you’re conducting an orchestra. We go upward first with the baton as it were, to see God holy in his place in heaven and then downward towards the earth. Now Lord, your will done here.

And then personal things, the relational things, the resources of life, Lord, requests. So we have reverence and then a response. And now requesting, give us this day our daily bread, forgive us our debts as we forgive those who are debtors. That helps us understand that we can ask for, he asks us to ask resources and relationships and then finally lead us not at the temptation, but deliver us from evil. We think that the fourth theme of corporate prayer in particular is warfare. Lord, we need to be readied for the battle. This is an ongoing everyday thing. So it’s our view that Jesus gives us a model prayer in Matthew chapter six. We should employ that as the guide to engage our congregations in corporate prayer. And we call it scripture Fed Spirit led worship based prayer and not just request based, but we go first to God and then we seek his face, then we get his hands. That’s pretty much our method. That’s what we encourage pastors to do. We have resources and lots of other things on our web fellowship and different local bodies that you can be a part of and be involved in prayer groups. If you’re a pastor, we’d love to serve you. No charge at all to join our gang. The six four fellowship is a free fellowship and you can join several thousand others across North America and around the world to be pastors committed to prayer and the ministry of the word.

Jamie Mitchell:

Amen. Amen. Well, I’m glad you took time to explain that one of the issues is pastors need to get together and pray with each other and pray for each other to root out the envy and the competition and the contention that sometimes finds its way into the hearts of pastors lend. We’ve got just a few minutes left here. We want to talk about remedies for envy, and would you just take, when we were getting ready, you shared some thoughts out of Ephesians four, and you’re not going to be able to exposit the text, but can you give some insights that you think will really be helpful to overcome envy?

Len Crowley:

I’ll try and do it quickly. The reality is envy is expressed in all kinds of things, in all kinds of ways. One of the ways it expresses itself is in anger, in emotion. And Paul says in Ephesians chapter four, I want you to be genuine people and then follows along with that speaking truth to one another and then several commands. And the first four commands are on the issue of anger. And he says, be angry, but do not sin. Do not let the sun go down in your anger. Do not give the devil an opportunity. Four commands in that brief, two verses. But the strange and interesting thing is that Jesus or that Paul uses two different words for anger and it changes our understanding. He says, there is a kind of anger that’s not unrighteous, that is without sin. Go ahead and feel that, but don’t sin.

And he refers back to Psalm four, four, where there’s a trembling in potentially fear or anger. And we’re to resolve that. We’re to be self-aware that something has surfaced in us that causes an elevated emotion. And it may be anger, it may be fear. It’s hard to say, but I want to say that that anger that is human anger is explosive and sort of wrathful or raging has nothing to do with what Jesus or what Paul is talking about here. In fact, it says of Jesus, he was only angry in one place and he was angry with the Pharisees who talks about the grief in his heart. He actually has an emotion of grief that we associate with anger rather than raging. Anyway, what Paul says is don’t let the sun go down on that anger because it will morph, it will get worse. And it becomes then a different word.

So he says at the very beginning, be angry. And he uses the Greek word hoge, which is a neutral word for anger. Could be sinful or not. But when he gets to the next time, he uses the word anger in the same verse. It’s a different word. It’s par or gmas, which is really self-induced anger, or I might say resentment. You’ve held onto this anger. You’ve let it fester, it’s boiling, it’s spinning, it’s percolating in you. You’ve not dealt with it quickly and completely forgiving whatever needs to be done rapidly. But now it’s taken lodging. It’s cast roots into your heart. Don’t let that happen. Paul says that power gmas, that resentment then will be become a behavior. Don’t give the devil an opportunity. And it is the appropriate translation is devil, but the Greek word diaas means slanderer. So here’s aism. If we do not deal with our anger when it emerges in us and we feel it and we’re self-aware and pause and say, wait, wait, wait.

What’s this all about? Let me address it. Let me forgive it. Let me reason it away, understanding it, engage, whatever it may be that will help me walk through the anger and not sin. It will be become inevitably resentment and that will inevitably issue forth in my life as gossip and false accusation. And those are the kinds of evil and practices that emerge from lives that have envy at its core. And I can’t get what I want. I get angry about it. I’m fearful. And that was unaddressed bang. Eventually gossip and false accusation emerged, and that’s where it goes. That’s the kind of thing we should all be alert to. It has its order.

Jamie Mitchell:

Len, our time, our time is gone. What a helpful, but convicting hour, thank you again. Listen, friends, envy is everywhere it can capture our hearts. Don’t let it go overnight and build up and build up. To do that, you’re going to need to act with courage. So again, live and lead with courage. See you tomorrow.