Hebrews 13; Exodus 18; Exodus 19; Proverbs 8

“Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” (Hebrews 13:5 NKJV)

We don’t use the word “covet” a lot these days, but you can tell that God doesn’t like it when people covet. The tenth commandment is an admonition against coveting. In today’s readings, coveting is warned against here and Moses’s father in law warned against choosing leaders who covet. People who covet always want a little bit more. They’re never satisfied. Americans may not have invented the concept of coveting, but we’ve done a great job of perfecting it. The old joke asks how much money the average American thinks they need, and the answer is just a little bit more. We’ve spiritualized coveting and made it a virtue, because if we have faith, God’s gonna bless us real good. We covet because we’re not satisfied. We covet because we’re jealous of our neighbor who may have nice things. I don’t think the admonition against coveting means we can’t want nice things, I think God warns us against an unhealthy, obsessive desire to get more. The cure for covetousness is satisfaction. Trust God to take care of all your needs because He won’t leave or forget us.

Can you be content with what you have, or do you need just a little bit more? Or a lot more? What would happen to the economy if we learned how to be content? What if, because we weren’t striving for more things all the time, we found ways to give more money away to effective ministry groups, especially our churches? I think we’d see a different world.

Lord, teach me contentment. Help me learn to be content with my relationship with You. Give me the courage to stop coveting and start reminding myself that Your presence in my life should satisfy me in all circumstances.

Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.