Jealousy Follows Favor Series

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No matter what God has called you to be it in ministry, business, government, education etc., you will notice that jealousy inevitably follows after favor. It doesn’t just follow but it hunts and runs after it because others see something in you they either want, need or used to have. Many people who have been called and anointed by God have faced this challenge and those who successfully pass this test are allowed to take the next step in their callings. While those who fail typically become the next generation of the jealous who go about hunting those called by God to achieve something in this world.

When God begins to move in your life people start paying attention to you wherever you go. At times this can be good attention like the kind which helps you find those that can aid you in your journey, or you find others needed help as well. This is the place of favor where God begins to connect you with others so that your callings and dreams can manifest in this world. Even David had these people in his life with the likes of Samuel, Jonathan, this mighty men, Joab and others.

However, there’s a second category of attention that you will receive. People who are anointed typically encounter where those who either hate, resent or covet what God has placed upon their life. As you progress in you calling and relationship with God these people will emerge and try to either silence you, cripple you or convert you into one of them.

How you deal with these people will determine how you progress along the path of the 4 A’s of Anointing, Apprenticeship, Activation and Announcement. No matter what you’re called to become you’ll encounter this resistance in some way, shape or form. This resistance can come in the form of a person, group, organization, friend, family member or online stranger. It feels as if there is a natural attraction that the darkness has when it sees the light of God in someone. Not that they want to encounter the light of God but rather they are attracted to it because they want to snuff it out, so their darkness isn’t disturbed.

Thousands vs. Ten Thousands

Once God began to bring close supporters into David’s life then it was only a matter of time that the crowds at large began to recognize what was happening in his life. Between the defeat of Goliath and David’ blossoming military career he was being moved closer into the national spotlight right next to Saul. With each task placed before him David was found to be faithful and wise and victories against Israel’s primary enemy the Philistines were happening at a pace not seen since Joshua’s invasion.

What happened here is that God provided David an opportunity to enter into his season of apprenticeship in his anointing and David took that opportunity and did something with it. He didn’t talk about it, or dream of what he could do with those opportunities, no he went to work, and out worked those around him. We don’t just get David boasting about himself about all of this, rather we witness the praises of the people who were beginning to see David as the new great warrior of Israel. A title that used to be Saul’s up until he was abandoned by God and he no longer fought as he used to, we see with his unwillingness to answer Goliath’s challenge (HERE) and by him remaining often in his capital of Gibeah while David went out and fought.

1 Samuel 18:6-7 “6 Now it had happened as they were coming home, when David was returning from the slaughter of the Philistine, that the women had come out of all the cities of Israel, singing and dancing, to meet King Saul, with tambourines, with joy, and with musical instruments. 7 So the women sang as they danced, and said: “Saul has slain his thousands, And David his ten thousands.”

While this was good news for David it was interpreted in a completely different way by Saul, who took these words as being the manifestation of his greatest fear. Since he was rejected as king by God (1 Samuel 15:26-28) Saul has been on the lookout for the “neighbor of yours, who is better than you” who would take the kingdom away from him. God had already taken the kingdom away from Saul spiritually but the day was not yet for it to be taken away in the natural realm.

This reaction from Saul is common in those who have lost their anointing, calling, hope or living relationship with God. They can’t stand seeing someone else enjoying the benefits they used to have but lost for some reason or another. Some lost them through sin, others from a lack of faith, greed, the pressures of the world and still others because they were “re-educated” into thinking what they had or had been called to was wrong, evil, undesirable or “not God’s will.”