Jealousy can become such a burning desire in a person's heart that it can shrivel him up. When we are jealous, we usually torment the person we love. Yes, jealousy can give birth to hatred, betrayal and in some cases to murder. Infinite misery and sorrow have grown out of this root of jealousy. It can disrupt family life, business life and even life within our churches.
If we are not redeemed from this sin of wanting others to love us alone, we will become spiritually bankrupt and our lives will not produce any fruit. For if jealousy rules in us, we are incapable of wholeheartedly working for God and His kingdom.
We have to be freed from this sin of jealousy, no matter how high is the price. With its burning, consuming fire, it is a foreshadow of how such hellish craving can eat away at body and soul one day in the kingdom of darkness.
But God's love wants to protect us from this. Jesus through His redemption wants to free us from jealousy even if it burns like fire in our hearts. But redemption involves a genuine battle of faith on our part against this ravaging sin.
It is a matter of making a conscious renunciation of such sinful craving: "I do not want to have anything, my God, that You do not give me. If you do not give me the love of this person, I do not want to have it. I will give him up to You." God can only help us if we give up this person and our claim to his love again and again, and really lay them on the altar. Otherwise we are like a patient who has the best medicine, but still will not recover, because he does not want to leave the surroundings which are responsible for his illness and which continually make it worse. So it means completely letting go of the person whose love and attention we jealously seek. That means, we should not make any claims on him or on his time, nor should we seek to control whom he spends his time with or whom he likes.
Jesus can only set us free if we really want to be free, and give Him a sign of our willingness. Otherwise the rope that binds us to a person will bind us more and more to Satan and his kingdom. Everything is at stake. Such jealousy is a sign that we do not really love Jesus and that we are "of the flesh". "For while there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not of the flesh, and behaving like ordinary men?" (1 Cor. 3: 3). The Holy Scriptures pronounce a terrible verdict on the works of the flesh. People committing these sins will not enter the Kingdom of God (Gal. 5: 20f).
But if we have received a holy fear of our jealousy through a revelation of what jealousy really is, and we regret that we have sinned, it will lose its power over us. Then the blood of the Lamb, which makes us free from all sin will reveal its power more and more. If this redeeming blood of Jesus is proclaimed over the sin of jealousy again and again, it has power to free us. Jesus is mightier than the powers in us. His victory has condemned them to death. Whenever these sinful attachments are crucified with Christ, Jesus gives birth to new, divine love in our soul, which is free from attachments to people and cravings for human love. It will make us and others happy. Jesus has won this love for us. He wants to give it to those who are willing to surrender their sinful love and claim in faith the righteousness and love of Jesus. Only those who have overcome in their fight with sin will enter the City of God and His glory.
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Copyrighted material. Taken from YOU WILL NEVER BE THE SAME by M Basilea Schlink and used by permission. Further information at: www.kanaan.org
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Basilea Schlink (1904 – 2001)
She was used of the Lord to help found the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary. The Lord has used her writings powerfully to help encourage the greater body of Christ of future sufferings for the Lord and how to endure them. Also one of the burdens of her ministry was to share in the sufferings of the Lord and share the sorrow that Jesus has for a lost world and a backslidden church."In heaven we will say, ‘Do you remember the time we celebrated a festival of heaven on earth with Mother Basilea?'" - Corrie ten Boom. "To visit one of the Kanaan sanctuaries that they have assembled around the world is to visit a taste of the kingdom on earth." - Greg Gordon
Recommends these books by Basilea Schlink:
My All for Him: Fall in Love With Jesus All over Again by Basilea Schlink
You Will Never Be the Same by Basilea Schlink
Ruled by the Spirit by Basilea Schlink
Basilea Schlink, born Klara Schlink was a German religious leader and writer. She was leader of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, which she cofounded, from 1947 to 2001.
Some years later Schlink was living in a badly bombed Germany with few resources, but it was important for her to repent for Germany's cruel treatment of other nations during the war, especially the Jews. She felt the temptation to marry like other young women did. Instead she gave her mission the first priority, and so she became a Sister of Mary.
On March 30, 1947, she and Erika Madauss founded The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary in Darmstadt. In 1948 both the founders and the first seven sisters became nuns. From then on, Dr. Klara Schlink called herself Mutter Basilea and Erika Madaus called herself Mutter Martyria. Today, The Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary has 11 subdivisons all over the world, with in total 209 sisters, and about 130 of these are situated in Darmstadt.
Klara Schlink, religious leader and writer: born Darmstadt, Germany 21 October 1904; leader, Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary 1947-2001, taking the name Mother Basilea; died Darmstadt 21 March 2001.
Basiliea Schlink was the co-founder and spiritual leader for half a century of the Evangelical Sisterhood of Mary, a community dedicated to a Christian literature and radio ministry. She was herself a prolific writer, her devotional books, pamphlets and hymns being translated into more than 60 languages.
The Sisterhood of Mary, initially Lutheran but now interdenominational, numbers more than 200 women from 20 countries, with 14 men in the affiliated Canaan Franciscan Brothers. It has branched out from its centre in Germany, at Darmstadt near Frankfurt, to Australia, Israel and the United States, and has one community at Radlett in Hertfordshire. The Sisterhood publishes tracts in 90 languages and distributes them on all five continents, while its radio and television programmes are broadcast in 23 languages.
Perhaps Mother Basilea's most noted contribution to religious life was her work for reconciliation between Germans and Jews. As a young woman she had learnt with horror of the Nazi extermination of the Jewish communities of her homeland and much of Europe, and dedicated her life to seeking forgiveness and overcoming the legacy of this mutual bitterness.
As national president of the Women's Division of the German Student Christian Movement from 1933 to 1935, Schlink refused to comply with Nazi edicts barring Jewish Christians from meetings.
It was not until March 1947 that Schlink and Madauss were eventually able to fulfil their vision of establishing the Sisterhood.