Living Our Faith

"And so, dear brothers and sisters, I plead with you to give your bodies to God because of all He has done for you. Let them be a living and holy sacrifice -- the kind He will find acceptable. This is truly the way to worship Him." Romans 12:1

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Categories
    Categories Displays a list of categories from this blog.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that has been used in the blog.
  • Archives
    Archives Contains a list of blog posts that were created previously.
  • Login

8th Commandment: Stealing

Posted by on in Upcoming Sermon
  • Font size: Larger Smaller
  • Hits: 3171
  • 0 Comments
  • Print

The Scripture reading for this Sunday is Exodus 20:15 (“You shall not steal”) and Matthew 6:19-24.

Stealing isn’t a crime reserved for crooks and criminals. We all do it.

            Maybe we take an extra long lunch hour, knowing that our boss won’t notice.

            Maybe we just put in our time at work, but not really give our full effort.

            Maybe we take advantage of a few loopholes when we file our taxes. While this is fully ‘legal,’ we abuse the spirit of the law in order to save a buck or two.

            Maybe we notice when the cashier forgets to ring in an item or an item rings up in our favor and we don’t say anything about it.

            Maybe we put the leftover money from the week in the offering plate on Sunday and not the 10% that God asks from us.

            Maybe we sell something to another person without telling them that it, in fact, isn’t in the kind of working condition that we claim it is.

            Maybe we treat our possessions as replaceable even though God calls us to be stewards.

These are just a few examples of “stealing” covered by the commandment. There are all sorts of reasons for “stealing” – but in the end they all fall short of what we are deeply longing for. The extra dollar or the new thing we get aren’t going to make us happy, neither is getting paid for less than a full days work (even if we feel that we aren’t getting paid enough as it is). These things won’t give us security, or provide the care for us that we need.

In the end, God’s command against stealing comes down to who our provider is. Whenever we steal we act as our own provider. We feel that if we don’t take what we feel should be ours right now we will miss out on it forever. God commands against stealing because He wants to be our Provider. He wants us to trust in Him. He promises to care for us.

Ron Mehl writes, “The world will find every way to charge you more and give you less. There will be fewer crackers in the box, less meat in the hamburger, and fewer miles in that new car – even though it will cost you more every year. But the Lord says to us, ‘Don’t worry about that. And don’t steal or spend all of your energy trying to scheme and manipulate things to your own advantage. Because if you obey My Word, I’ll provide for your every need all the days of your life.” (Mehl, The Ten[der] Commandments, 207-8)

Therefore, rather than storing up treasures on earth – at whatever means necessary – we store up our treasures in heaven. We place our hope and our trust in God to meet our needs. Only by trusting in Him to provide (He who gave His Only Son for us) will our needs be met and our hearts satisfied.

Rate this blog entry:
6

Comments

  • No comments made yet. Be the first to submit a comment

Leave your comment

Guest Thursday, 28 March 2024

Upcoming Events

There are currently no upcoming events.

Devotionals