Do you ever wonder why God didn’t offer the Ten Commandments in a different order. If they were in reverse order, the 10th commandment would correlate to the first; sin and desire. Looking at Eve’s sin, it wasn’t simply her desire for a piece of fruit; it was the desire for knowledge that Satan told her would make her like God Gen. 3:5. Eve’s desire to be like God caused her to violate both the first and tenth commands.
When we don’t covet or seek to enviously have what some one else has, we pretty much eliminate our reasons to disobey the other commands. Wanting what isn’t ours causes us to be untruthful, take, engage in adultery, murder, and refuse to honor our parents. We refuse to rest because we can’t get what we want in six days of work. We misuse God’s name when we use it to justify something that we want to do. We make gods out of wealth and relationships because we don’t want to have to put all our trust in God.
We all would have a hard time coming up with sins that don’t involve some form of covetousness. Yet because it’s the last in the list, we may think of it as being the least important. But it isn’t. When we stop sin while it is still in our head and hearts, we avoid making someone else the victim of our sin, and we avoid much of the ramifications of sin too.
Truly we can find contentment is realizing that God has already given us all we need. Share how you avoid sin in your life. Living a life free of sin is not easy for sure. But your sharing can others get through a challenge. Please leave a comment.
See you next Sunday,
MJ