The chief priests and scribes were not big Jesus fans. The Apostle Matthew and Peter’s disciple, Mark, record that Jesus knew that these religious leaders envied Him so much that they would accuse Him and condemn Him to death. In their defense, they were demonically inspired and compelled, but still their envy opened the door to that sort of influence. The chief priest, of course, did not want the Great High Priest of our confession to come into power, because that meant that they were out of a job. And though they did not know that He would tear the veil in two, the fallen angels that guided their thoughts and religious control of the nation knew. Demons hate all people, especially Jesus. So if they are able to control some and keep them from Him, they have accomplished their goal of making many people miserable with them for eternity. The scribes would also be out their jobs if everyone had equal access to the Spirit of revelation. Jesus sets people free to access God, this eliminates elitism across the board.
Just as the Lord doesn’t ask questions to get answers from us, the chief priests and scribes were not asking from Whom Jesus got his authority, they did not care. Their hearts were so filled with jealousy and envy that the people were following this carpenter-rabbi that they were asking “who gave You this authority?” Though masking it as a legitimate question, their masquerade is stifled when He calls them on their need for approval from men with a riddle-type counter-question that leaves them answerless.
It is this same envy and jealousy that comes up in our hearts when someone is promoted when we think we are entitled to what they are being given. It is jealousy of the anointing. Let me be clear here, envy of the anointing leads us down the path of the spirit of murder. Follow the logical progression. When you envy someone, you begin to dislike and judge them, leading to anger toward them. This anger, if not dealt with in a healthy manor, becomes hate and that is the emotion of murder. Jesus set the standard high, saying that if we hate our brother in our heart, we have already murdered them. Envy is the entry point to the spirit of murder that caused the Pharisees to murder the Messiah. So when we begin to envy someone for their promotion or anointing, we are taking a stole down the same street. We must avoid this at all costs to walk in fullness.
One of my spiritual big brothers counseled me once to pray for all of my ministry friends to be more anointed than myself. I had come asking him for help in how to walk in humility and not self-promotion. So I began to do that, I put a list of all their names by my bed, 6 pages or so, and would periodically pray for each by name, one page at a time. This was fine, I found, until it actually began to manifest in real life. All around me those I was once so supportive of became the subject of my envy, steadily creeping toward hate. I had to realize that I was setting my heart toward murder of the anointing, if not the anointed, by embracing this envy. I was becoming a Pharisee. It scared me badly.
In the end, I repented and found that I had a significant role in helping those around me to get out of the same religious mindsets as well as support those that were the former targets of envy. The great part about having these things come to the surface of our souls is that they are coming up and out, like dross in the purifying fire. Demons always manifested most harshly when Jesus came near to remove them. When we start to manifest wrong thought patterns and heart issues that are not normal to our personality, it is because Jesus is near and coming to deliver us. Take heart, He is near and He loves us.
*Anointed One, Giver of the anointing, deliver and preserve us from envy. Amen*
Raw Orthodoxy 
This is good stuff, as always. It’s definitely something that I’ve been struggling with this week… well, okay, every week. Way to shoot some arrows, Vince.