(From the archives)
"Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is thy neighbors." I learned a lesson about coveting early in my life. When I was about ten years old, my neighbor got a new cap pistol. It was a great cap pistol. You have to understand that in 1949 a cap pistol to a ten year old boy was like a computer game to a ten year old today. It was "love at first sight." I had to have that cap pistol. When my neighbor wasn't looking, I absconded with the cap pistol, took it across the street to my house and hid it in my underwear drawer. At last, it was mine. But I discovered that it did not belong to me, rather, I belonged to it. I did not enjoy that cap pistol one bit, because I couldn't take it out of the drawer to play with it. If mama and daddy saw it, they would want to know where I got it. If I played with it outside, my neighbor would see it and know that I had stolen it. (It didn't occur to me at the time that I had broken two commandments - coveting and stealing.) So about a week later, I stealthily went to my neighbor's house and laid it down on his front porch and quietly sneaked back home. At last, I was free from that blooming cap pistol. At en years old, I did not know what coveting meant, but I knew the effects of it. The fact that I remember this incident so clearly all of these years later, means that it made a profound impression on my mind. I wish that I could say that I never coveted again, but I can't. (However I did not steal another cap pistol, or anything else for that matter.) To live one's life wishing that one had what his neighbor has is a miserable way to live. I think you know what I mean. You could probably confess to coveting. Don't be like one fellow who said, "But at least I have never coveted my neighbor's donkey." The fact that his neighbor did not have a donkey must not have occurred to him. The key to overcoming covetousness is to put "things" in their proper perspective and in their proper place. There is nothing that our neighbor owns that we have to have to make our lives complete."Things" do not complete us. We need to have Paul's attitude as written in Philippians 4:11-13 after he had received a monetary gift from the Philippian Church: "Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 12. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." There is the answer to overcoming covetousness. Selah Bro. Joe
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( I went all the way back to 2011 to find this article. It is one of my first CouchPotatoRedux articles. I pray that it will bless you.) "Be not wise in thine own eyes..." There are three words that I am glad that I learned to say:" I don't know." A truly wise person will say "I don't know" when he or she does not really know. When I was a younger preacher I would give people an answer to Bible questions, etc. whether I knew the answer or not. I truly wanted to appear wise to my older deacons, but I don't think I convinced them. : Since we know that nobody knows everything, we should not be afraid to say "I don't know" when we really don't. For example, I've heard people say that they were stumped when their child asked them where God came from. There is only one answer - "I don't know." Another of those puzzling Biblical questions is, "Where did Cain get his wife?" Unless you read a different Bible from the one I read the answer is still "I don't know." Only God is all-knowing.In Romans 11:34-36, Paul was writing on the sovereignty of God. Here was his conclusion in that passage: "Oh the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and how inscrutable His ways. For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been His counselor? Or who has given a gift to Him that He might be repaid? For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be glory forever. Amen" If Paul could say "I don't know," it shouldn't be too difficult for us. Bro. Joe “Judge not, that you be not judged. 2. For with what judgment you judge, you shall be judged, and with what measure you mete, it shall be measured to you again.”
“Judge not” is one of the most confusing concepts written in the New Testament. On one hand it makes sense that one human being cannot judge another, on the other hand it seems to be in order that to “judge not” we will have to ignore sin. I will try to make sense of this for myself and for you. “Judge not” does not mean that we cannot recognize sin. Sin is a reality that was brought into the world by our first parents, and it has been with us since. The whole Bible deals with the reality of sin. Why was there a flood that destroyed the whole world? Sin! Why were Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed? Sin! Why did David write Psalm 51? He wrote it because he had sinned and he knew that he needed to be forgiven for those sins. Why did Jesus come into the world, to live a perfect life and die on the cross? It was because of sin. Sin is real and it is the reason for all of the things that happen in this fallen world. We do not have to judge sin, because God has already judged it and it is always wrong. “Judge not” does not mean that we can’t warn people about sin in their lives . If we know that someone is headed in the wrong direction and that this direction could ruin their lives, we are negligent in our Christian witness if we do not give a word of warning. It is not “ugly and mean” to warn people about how certain sins can ruin their lives. We are, however, to approach people in an attitude of compassion and love. I know that I have been helped by loving and compassionate Christians reminding me of the reality of sin in my life. This was especially true in the years that I was growing up and experimenting with what the world had to offer. I did not always heed the warnings, but I surely needed the warnings and I think that my life is better because of intervention of fellow Christians. We are not doing anyone a favor when we ignore sin in their lives. “Judge not” does mean that we need to be careful when we are warning other people about their sins, that we are not doing the same things, or maybe even worse. Jesus made this plain in Matthew 7:3: “And why behold thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but do not consider the beam (or log) that is in your own eye?” Paul gave a warning about this in Romans 2:1: “Therefore you are inexcusable, O man, whoever you are that judges: for wherein you judge another you do not consider yourself, for you that judge are doing the same things.” It is much easier for us to recognize sin in someone else’s life than it is to recognize it in our own lives. We need to remember that our sins are being judged by someone much higher than ourselves, and that He knows what is in our lives. “Judge not” does mean that we are not to be pharisaical and condescending ("holier than thou") when we are warning others about their sins. We need to remember that “all have sinned and come short of the glory of God,” and that this verse applies to us as well. Paul wrote about this in Ephesians 4:15: “But speaking the truth in love may grow up into Him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.” We are not qualified to be condescending before any person, no matter how bad they seem to be. Remember that Jesus was not impressed by the Pharisee who went to pray and in his prayer condemned the tax collector who was praying at the same time. (Read Luke 18:10-14.) “Judge not” means that there is only one real judge, and He is not us! (I know that is bad grammar.) It is certainly not wrong to be concerned about sin in other people’s lives, but it is wrong when we think that we are qualified to look down on them. If anyone has ever been qualified to look down on people it was Jesus, and that is not how he treated sinners. When we look down on people, we are committing the sin of false pride, which is certainly condemned in the Bible. We are not to ignore sin, and this means that we are not to ignore our own sins. Bro. Joe “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be
enough evidence to convict you?” Author unknown I saw the above quotation on a church bulletin board a few years ago, and it has stuck with me. I don’t know who wrote it, but it gets to the core of the problem of Christian witness and behavior. It reminds me of the advertisements on medicines these days on television. Truth in advertising laws demands that they tell the side effects of the medicine they are advertising. By the time they list all of the side effects, I usually end up asking myself why in the world would I take that medicine if it could all of that to me? But it is best that we know the truth about it, and would I not want them to tell me the truth? We need truth in advertising in our lives as well. It is easy for one to say that he or she is a Christian. The words come so easily: “I am a Christian.” What do we mean by that? Do we realize that when we say that, people will certainly expect us to be different? I know that it is difficult to be different in today’s society. This has always been true. Peter wrote about this issue in 1 Peter 4:4: “Where in they think it strange that ye run not with them to the same excess of riot, speaking evil of you.” People don’t like it when we are different. Sometimes it is because they do not realize what the Christian life is all about. Sometimes it is because our being different makes them feel guilty. But the demand is that we be different. Now, don’t go getting the idea that I am saying that we should be different in self-righteous and “snooty” attitudes. That is not called being different, it is called being a poor witness for Jesus Christ. Jesus certainly never looked down his nose at people, whether rich or poor. In fact, he was hardest on the Pharisees who were famous for their self-righteousness. Of course, we need to live clean lives, watching what we say and do. When people see us doing otherwise they are turned off. “You would never know that he or she is a Christian by the way he or she acts.” We need to pay attention to kingdom righteousness. Kingdom righteousness has to do with how live our lives in private or in front of people. It also has to do with how we relate to other people, and how we treat other people. Some of the poorest advertising that we do is how we sometimes treat each other in churches. After all, Jesus told us that the world would know we are Christians by our love for each other. There are certainly times when we should rise up in righteous indignation when our faith is belittled and smeared. But we should remember at the same time to let people know what we are for as much as what we are against. We are against sin but we are for loving the sinner. We are against what the Bible calls “riotous living,” but we are for helping people come out of those lifestyles. We want to stay away from sin, but, like Jesus, we need to witness and minister to people who are lost in sin. I ask again: “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?” Bro. Joe There are many reasons why I believe that the Bible is true, but one of the main reasons is that the Bible is honest about it's so-called "heroes." It does not hide the flaws of all of the great men of the Bible. For example, we are told that Abraham, the father of Jews and Christians, went into Egypt out of God's will and lied to Pharoh about Sarah. (Altough technically she was his half-sister.) Moses, who, according the Bible, was one of the most humble of men and was entrusted with the care of the Hebrew children, was a murderer and a fugitive from justice. He wasn't allowed into Canaan because he disobeyed God in the matter of striking the rock instead of speaking to it. He was also given to tempter tantrums. When he came down from Mount Sinai with the ten commandments, he "broke" all ten of them by throwing them to the ground when he saw the folly of the Israelites. Who is more of a hero in the Bible than David? He was the one who saved the Israeli army by slaying the giant, Goliath. Goliath was nine feet tall, and David was just a boy, but David took him on and defeated him. David was God's anointed king of Israel, and was called "a man after God's own heart," yet we are told about his adulterous relationship with Bathsheba. As we move to the New Testament, we will observe that the only person there above reproach was Jesus. We are told that "He was tempted in all points, like as we are, yet without sin." The same cannot be said for the followers of Jesus. I guess the greatest example is Simon Peter. He was the one who always spoke up and, quite often, "stuck his foot in his mouth." At the
transfiguration, he blabbed out: "Let's build three tabernacles, one for you (Jesus) and one for Moses and one for Elijah." (not an exact quote) This was ignored as the stupid statement that it was. It was not a sin, but showed Peter's tendency to speak without thinking. This was not Peter's only fault. He bragged about how he would protect Jesus, then when confronted at his trial, denied Him three times. He was called "the Rock" by Jesus, yet didn't always act like "the Rock." He went on to greatness, but not before we are made to realize that he was a flawed human being. What is the lesson for us? We all have our flaws. We are all "sinners saved by grace." Not a one of us is good by the Bible's standards, yet as flawed as we are, God still uses us. Being a flawed human being is no excuse for not trusting Jesus as our savior, and for not serving Him. All of us are saved by His grace, and we serve in His grace. I consider myself a prime example of that. Bro. Joe |
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