No Need to Covet

We live in a culture that depends on coveting. Watch any amount of television, read almost any magazine, surf any website and you'll see it. That thing you MUST have that someone else has and is really enjoying. Usually a famous face is using it and making you feel so small for not having it. The marketing strategy of America is banking on you breaking the 10th commandment.

Exodus 20:17 (ESV) “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant, or his female servant, or his ox, or his donkey, or anything that is your neighbor’s.”

The word "covet" is a key word in the first few chapters of the bible. It is used to describe the pleasantness of all that God created. 
Genesis 2:9 (ESV) And out of the ground the LORD God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant (coveted) to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

It is later used to describe the instinct behind the first act of transgression on the part of the woman. 
Genesis 3:6 (ESV) So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired (coveted) to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate.

She ate the fruit. Why? Because she desired something that God would have given her but on her own terms and according to the deception of the enemy.

First, the positive news about the use of this word... Man is made for pleasure. He is not made to go about life with the bare necessities. God never intended a stale existence for you. It is not wrong to enjoy the goodness of God in multifaceted ways through multi-sensory experiences. God made the world with billions of creative splashes throughout the Earth and in the heavens. Eternity will be spent enjoying all of it forever! There is nothing wrong with pleasure. God gives it, man is made for it, and you should have it.

Second, there's an important stipulation about pleasure. Desired wrongly and it brings death. We see in the first temptation that there are things that seem good but end destructively for us. Pleasure is not a free for all. You either learn that by the example of others or your own pain.  

So why is life like this? Why did God create that tree we shouldn't have had in the first place? I have heard some say it's because God did not want automatons. He didn't want a world filled with robots who cannot do anything but obey Him. Well, I believe that's an elemental way of answering the question. But the first thing man did with the gift of free will was run from God's direction and choose their own path in covetous desire. So that may lead to another more awkward question: did God create rebellious people on purpose?

I think the better answer is simply this: God created a world with pleasure we can and should enjoy and pleasures we should avoid so that we would do this one most important thing: Learn to listen to His voice, trust Him and love Him.

Isn't that what every temptation is about? Learning to that enjoying God and His word is always better than the alternative? In Him we find that we are made for more enjoyment than sin could ever offer. The enjoyment of relationship with our Father, our Creator, our soul's habitation. If you read the Bible's story, you see that this is the point... not just obedience to God's Word, but knowing and trusting God's goodness. HE is the prize. We are not to covet because we have Him. His eye is on our lives. His gaze is toward us. He blesses us with every good and perfect gift. You will lack no good thing.

Exodus 20:18 (ESV) Now when all the people saw the thunder and the flashes of lightning and the sound of the trumpet and the mountain smoking, the people were afraid and trembled, and they stood far off

The Ten Commandments close with God's people running in fear of God's voice. How ironic that man ran from God after His first 10 sayings that brought Creation in Genesis 1. Now again man runs after these 10 sayings that brought order and civility in Exodus 20. Yet 1000s of years of Israel's history and human history have proved one thing... when we run, we suffer, but when we come back, we enjoy God's goodness. Just ask the prodigal son, Zaccheaus the tax collector, Mary Magdalene and the many others who have shelved their running shoes for slippers and took comfort in the abode that they were made for.

In Him we have our final home.
What else could we need?