Good jealousy and bad jealousy in dating relationships is the topic today.

It's not an uncommon question.

We get it quite often, but it's one we've never gotten to and tell them now.

So here we are.

It arrives in the form of an email from a listener named Charles.

Hello, Pastor John.

I'm very thankful for your ministry and the profound impact God is making through you

for the kingdom.

I have battled with jealousy and control in my romantic relationships all of my life.

I pray to be fully delivered from it one day, but it hasn't happened yet.

Is jealousy normal in dating and Pastor John, how can I fight it?

I think we should put the question of jealousy first in its wider biblical context.

Not just start with dating, but start with God and move to people in ordinary relationships

and then dating Exodus 20, verse 5 and 34, 14 say that God is a jealous God.

That means he has a strong desire that all the affections that belong to him in the

hearts of his people come to him rather than going to other persons or other things.

The form that this strong desire takes when affections of his people belong to him,

go to him is joy and the strong desire, if they go somewhere else, these affections

go somewhere else is anger.

So jealousy itself can be expressed positively as a joyful desire for the affections of

the beloved and negatively as anger over the misplacement of the affections of the beloved.

In either case, jealousy can be good, a proper emotion in the heart of God.

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