“For the commandments, ‘You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet,’ and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” Romans 13:9–10
Do you remember the first of the Ten Commandments? It was that we should have no other gods than the God of the Bible. He alone is the true God over all the universe, and he will have no rivals.
Why do you think God chose to tell us this commandment first? It might be because he knows that we are prone to wander away from him and worship things other than him. He knows that our hearts are like little idol-making factories—idols that we want to bow down to. Can you think of what some of those idols might be in your life that you are tempted to worship?
For many, it’s money. If you worship it but you don’t have any of it, you might be tempted to steal to get it. If money is our god, then we might feel completely worthless until we get it.
In this way, stealing is really a worship problem. We worship the wrong things. If we can’t have them, we hurt other people in order to get it.
But the great news is that God is always ready to give himself to us. He says that he loves to give his Holy Spirit to those who ask him (Luke 11:11–13). He is always near those who humbly trust him. Know that the thing that we need most can never be taken away from us. This perspective helps us battle any desire to steal.
Read
- How do we fulfill the law?
- Why is stealing unloving?
Pray
Father, thank you that you are so loving as to command us to worship you and you alone. You know that our hearts are prone to wander from you and worship anything besides you. Our hearts are restless until they rest in you. Draw us near to you as we draw near to you. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.
This devotion is adapted from the Ten Commandments Study Guide.
