Stealing from God and Ourselves

Heidelberg Catechism — Question 110

The eighth commandment also forbids “all covetousness, all abuse and waste of God’s gifts.”

Stop to consider a moment. Did you ever realize that you can steal from God?

When you are stingy with God’s financial gifts, you are stealing. Do you refuse to give the Lord so much as a minimum of ten per cent of your income? We steal from God when we covetously hoard our possessions, exercise extreme thriftiness, and don’t give generously to worthy causes.

When you are stingy with God’s practical gifts, you are stealing. Are you using your gifts and talents in your family, congregation, and society in a biblical manner? For example, if you have a gift as a young person for visiting the elderly, why don’t you call up a few elderly widows and pay them a visit (read James 1:27)? Are you writing letters to your governmental leaders when they are confronted with unbiblical legislation? Are you burying God-given gifts by engaging in idleness? Are you abusing those gifts by using your minds, eyes, hands and feet to pursue pathways of sin?

When you are stingy with God’s spiritual gifts, you are stealing. Do you use the means of grace diligently? Do you, as Thomas Watson asks, not only dress your bodies, but also your souls (with prayer), as you attend church? If you do homework on the Lord’s day, or sleep excessively long between church services, whom are you stealing from? Do you make frequent use of the Lord’s invitation to pray? Do you reserve a daily, quiet time for devotions? Do you practice and experience, “In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths” (Prov. 3:6)?

Dear young friend, don’t steal from God, yes, even from yourself by devaluing your own soul. Did you know that we steal from ourselves when we seek temporal things before God?

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Mt. 6:33).

— JRB

Scripture Reading: Matthew 6:25:34

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