All Theft is Theft

Lenten Devotional Series Day 28. Today’s meditation is on the eighth commandment, “You shall not steal,” found in Exodus 20:15.

The eighth commandment is not difficult to understand. A small child can read it and grasp its meaning. But it is difficult for us to obey.

To be sure, we’ve probably never entered a bank with a sawn-off shotgun and a Ronald Reagan mask. Mugging young mothers at knifepoint has never crossed our minds. We may be outraged at the financial improprieties of others—pension fund frauds, tax evasion, expense scandals. But the prohibition against stealing also includes:

• Taking your company’s office supplies for personal use.
• Failing to give regularly and generously to your local church (and so robbing God).
• Indulging your own desires, but resenting family members “wasting” money on trivialities.
• Borrowing a book and forgetting to return it.
• Illegally downloading music, movies, or software.
• Envying other people’s prosperity.
• Frittering money on inessential clothes, or meals out, or the daily latte.
• Laziness.
• Entering a verbal contract, then going back on your word.
• Making illegitimate expense claims.
• Surfing the internet, texting, or making personal calls at work.
• Under-reporting to the IRS.
• Failing to honor the details of a rental agreement.
• Carelessness with other people’s possessions.
• Taking your housemate’s food from the refrigerator.
• Under-tipping in a restaurant.

Often, we excuse these things as insignificant, mere peccadilloes. And there are plenty of examples of “real” robbery and theft we can point to, to excuse our minor failures. Yet Jesus said that whoever is faithful in little is faithful in much, but whoever is dishonest in little is dishonest in much. These “small” thefts reveal our true character and the grip money and possessions still have on our hearts. If we are unfaithful in these areas, God simply won’t entrust us with bigger things (Luke 16:10-11).

The first step in breaking money’s grip is kneeling before God and naming things for what they are. Call theft, theft, confess it to God as a sin worthy of death, and ask him to forgive you and form you into a person who is honest in all the details of life.

Today in prayer.  Begin with the collect for the day (below). Then, write a detailed and specific list of all the ways you can think of where you’ve broken the eighth commandment. Name them before God for what they are, and seek his forgiveness and grace to change.

Collect of the Day. Almighty God, we pray that although we deserve to be punished for our evil deeds, yet by the comfort of your heavenly grace we may mercifully be relieved, through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.