Group: Adult

“God owns it all.” This is a tenet of generosity and stewardship that I have meditated on frequently since I joined the church staff a couple of years ago in my role as Generosity Consultant. It seems simple and straightforward, but the more I dig into the concept, the more lessons I see that the Lord has for me and all those who live this tenet as faithfully as we can.

When I believe that God owns it all, I can see that the commandment not to steal in Exodus is a reminder that possessions are gifts from the Lord. In that context, stealing is taking a neighbor’s gift. God entrusts, not gives, us assets to steward. I am not to take what the Lord has entrusted to my neighbor, but rather I am to manage my own resources (time, talent, and treasure) faithfully.

Consider the following verses:

Psalm 24: 1 – “The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it;”

Deuteronomy 8:18 – “But remember the Lord your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth;”

Stealing also signals a lack of contentment with the possessions God has given me. It is an active way to use my own will to add to my worldly wealth, apart from God’s gifts to me. Stealing is an assumption of ownership for myself, and I know there is no life found in putting myself in a role that is rightfully and perfectly the Lord’s.

As we’ve looked at the seventh commandment, this passage in Hosea has been one passage that has felt heavily pressed on my heart this week. This passage brings me back to the simplicity of why I was created… I was made for Jesus.

I was created to walk in the cool of the day with him.

I was created to know his thoughts towards me.

I was created to know what hurts his heart and what moves it with gladness.

I was created that no other thing would capture my heart the way he has.

I was created for undistracted, undivided attention to Jesus alone.

My devotion to Jesus directly impacts every thought and action I have. When we look away from Jesus, the door opens wider for other things to grab our attention. Every adulterous thought begins with small compromises in our thinking patterns. On Sunday, Jose talked about keeping our bar for purity high… but we cannot walk in true purity without devotion to the spotless, blameless, pure Lamb of God.

As I imagine the beautiful picture in Hosea that God has painted for us to display his love for us, I cannot help but think of a bride walking down the aisle to her groom. As she walks down the aisle, her attention lies nowhere else. No other person or material thing has her attention the way her groom does. This is how God desires that we abide in him every day. God never looks away; he never loses his unconditional love for us. Our bridegroom continually longs to have our full affection.

The seventh commandment has always been about more than physical adultery. It shows us the beauty of devotion to Jesus. Today, may we acknowledge that we fully belong to our blessed Savior, and pour out our devotion to him alone.

These verses describe a short conversation Jesus has with a woman accused of adultery. The Jewish leadership brought her before Jesus in hopes of trapping Him. If Jesus followed through with the Mosaic consequence, she would be stoned. If He didn’t, Jesus would be accused of not enforcing the Jewish law.

In this account, John says that in the middle of this intense scene Jesus stooped over and wrote in the dust on the ground with His finger. This story does not describe what Jesus wrote, but one commentary I’ve read before suggested that Jesus was writing the sins of the Jewish leadership before Him in the dust. This interpretation has always been very interesting to me. It potentially creates a clearer picture.

Imagine you are a Jewish Pharisee, and this man Jesus is undermining your leadership left and right. You and other men in leadership concoct a plan to trap Him. While you wait for His verdict about the adulterous woman, Jesus stoops down and begins to write words in the sand. Not just any words – sins. Then He writes down your deepest and most secret sin. A sin that only God Himself would know.

Much like these men, I lived so much of my young life trapped in legalism. I had Annie’s measuring stick, and I would measure others accordingly. Youth has that effect. Age has the opposite effect. I always thought that the older I got, the more answers I would have. Outside of the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the older I get the less answers I have. I don’t need to posture myself higher and higher; I need to go lower.

That is the example that Jesus gives us. That’s what covenant faithfulness teaches us. Humility, grace, surrender, love, and obedience in the place of accusation, pride, boastfulness, and arrogance.

It says a few verses later that each accuser, one by one, begins to walk away, beginning with the oldest. The man with the most life experience walked away first. Then it was just Jesus and the woman. Jesus, the only man in the crowd who was sinless, the only one who could have thrown the stone, stands before her with grace.

Where might Jesus be inviting you to lay down your measuring stick and walk in His grace? Regardless of what you might be walking through right now, walk hand in hand with Jesus. He will show you what covenant faithfulness looks like, just as He showed this woman. “Go and sin no more.”

I can have all the desire in the world to not want to commit adultery, but if I continually place myself in environments that feed temptation, that desire alone is not enough. In Matthew 26, Jesus foretells Peter’s denial and later tells him in the garden of Gethsemane, “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak” (v. 41). While Jesus is speaking to Peter specifically, the principle applies to every sin including adultery and sexual sin.

The young man in Proverbs is a great example. We don’t know what events led to him walking down the writer’s street. We are not told that he set out intending to be seduced by the adulterous woman. What we do know is that he was walking near the prostitute’s house in the cover of darkness. When she approached, he lingered and listened to her words. Eventually, he was seduced by her and entertained her invitation. Step by step, he moved closer to temptation until he was consumed by it.  

Now, we may not be walking past the house of a prostitute, but temptation is still present today. It often enters our homes and lives through media. The shows we watch, the websites we visit, the social media we scroll through, and the music we consume all shape our hearts and minds. My spirit may be willing but my flesh is weak. If I am not careful, I can justify watching a popular show filled with sexual content or sing along to lyrics that celebrate lust and unfaithfulness. Before long, I find myself entertaining the very desires Jesus warns begin in the heart. 

The lesson from both Proverbs and Jesus is clear: if we want to resist temptation we have to be careful about the path we choose to walk and what we allow to influence our lives.

Most people define adultery by the physical act itself. The Merriam-Webster Dictionary describes it as “the voluntary sexual intercourse between a married person and someone who is not their spouse.” Many of Jesus’ listeners likely understood the command, “You shall not commit adultery,” in the same way. But Jesus, in his teaching, challenges them and us by exposing the deeper issue. He says adultery begins in the heart, declaring that even looking at someone with lustful intent is committing adultery. 

This sin starts with the desires we choose to entertain. What we set our eyes on and consume leads our hearts to sin. In David Guzik’s commentary, he says, “We aren’t innocent just because we didn’t have the opportunity to sin the way we really want to.”

If you go back to yesterday’s devotional, scripture says we are made in the image of God, created with dignity and purpose. It also shows that the design for marriage is marked with unity, intimacy, and openness. With that in mind, if I look at another person with lustful intent, am I seeing them as a fellow image bearer of God, someone created with dignity and purpose? Or am I reducing them to an object for my own desires? 

And if I am married, am I cultivating unity, intimacy, and openness in my marriage by entertaining those thoughts? Or am I allowing division, alienation, and secrecy to take root in my heart? The answer is clear: lust does not honor the person being desired, nor does it strengthen the covenant marriage. Instead, it works against God’s design for both. 

Why was this command important to God? It’s best to start at the beginning. 

Genesis 1:27 declares, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” We, as humans, were made in the image of God, endowed with dignity and purpose. That purpose is revealed in Genesis 1:28, where God blesses humanity and commands them to “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

After creating man, God took him to the Garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Yet, for the first time in all of creation, God declared something “not good”: “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper fit for him” (Genesis 2:18). So, God created a woman. 

Then, Genesis 2:24-25 says, “Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed.” Here we see the establishment of the marriage covenant. It is a relationship marked by unity, intimacy, and openness before God and each other. So, when sin steps into the picture, we also see disunity, alienation, and shame. 

Adultery creates division, redirects intimacy outside of the covenant relationship, and breeds secrecy. It is the violation of the covenant bond God designed from the beginning. 

This passage highlights our actions as Christians; it compares love to life and hatred to death and murder. It calls out our actions: what are we doing? Am I like Cain, holding anger and resentment in my heart that leads to hatred, or am I living like Jesus, the one who sacrificed everything? Before we answer the question “What are we doing?”, answer the question “Does my heart belong in full submission to Jesus?” Proverbs says that everything we do flows out of the state of our hearts. These verses call us to humility and love exemplified by God himself. To not follow the ways of this world and crave violence and murder. 

These verses also show us that we are not immune to hate if we do love; in fact, John tells us not to be surprised. But we have gone from death to life, only by the one who has defeated death forever. 

The application here is to assess yourself. Yes, maybe of your actions and your love towards other people, but more so of the heart that causes hate. After the sin that is crouching at your door is identified, or that mosquito Jose talked about on Sunday, surrender it to Jesus. Do not try to kill the mosquito or the bear; let the one who defeated death and sin forever have your heart, and you will walk in freedom and love. 

Question: Does Jesus have my heart? And how is the state of my heart affecting the way I love others?

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for your cross, your sacrifice, and the example of love that you set for me. I give you my heart, and I surrender what has been occupying it. Let me submit to your will and live as though I have gone from death to life. 

Peter, the companion mentioned in this passage, is full of zeal and righteousness. He is stepping up to the Pharisee’s servants and defending his Rabbi and Lord with the sword. Jesus intervenes, correcting him and teaching him that the law will be fulfilled by willing sacrifice, not fighting. In our culture, the victor is the one who kills the most people, the one with the most piercing insults; some form of self-elevation usually identifies the victor. As a culture, we crave this: we crave winning, and we win at whatever cost, even if it is rooted in righteousness, as with Peter. But Jesus teaches us by his own example that rather than fight with fists or words, we are called to lay down our lives.

Jesus says in Luke 9:23, “Then he said to them all: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.'” This backward, sacrifice-first gospel is not confined to Jesus; it is calling us to recognize our brokenness and need for a savior and to pick up our own cross before pulling out the sword as Peter did. Taking up my cross looks like admitting my faults, and admitting that I have nothing to give. While I confess these things, I am not bound, because one person defeated the cross so that I can walk in freedom.

Question: What comes first for you, sacrifice or the sword? What prevents you from denying yourself and picking up your cross daily? 

Prayer: Jesus, allow me to choose to sacrifice first rather than to fight. Let me walk in humility and pick up my cross. Remind me of my brokenness, and let me walk in the freedom and strength you provide. Amen.

Someone said this weekend that you do not have to wait for another person to say sorry to forgive them; forgiveness is in the heart. I often think about love the same way. I will be willing to love someone well as long as they are nice to me, but whenever they mess up, I build resentment. I think the same principle applies to this verse. We don’t need to wait for someone to love us before we love them; in fact, Jesus says if we do, we are no better than tax collectors. It is so backward. Our world, our culture, even our nature tell us to seek revenge. Or maybe not even that, but to wait until someone does something nice and then you will love them. 

How can we do this? I think it starts with knowing who we are. We are broken, sinful people, and we are no different than our enemy except that we have a hope in eternal life. C.S. Lewis says this in his sermon titled The Weight of Glory: “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” He is referring to our eternity; this earth is not our home, and we should not treat it as such. What if we looked at people who think, vote, look, and act differently than us as someone worth everlasting life? How much more would we love them? So here is a challenge for you today: first, identify your “enemy”, whoever that may be in your life. Secondly, pray for them and seek an opportunity to love them for who they are, as human beings. 

Question: What is holding me back from loving my enemies? How can I love them this week?

Jesus, thank you for the cross. Thank you for your words, challenging us to reach higher than the world’s standards. Please help me to identify what holds me back from truly loving others, and put someone in my path today that I can share your love with. Amen. 

This passage is intimidating and scary for me. The word “reckoning” is a daunting word with a lot of weight. This verse highlights, though, how sacred and important human life is, how important your life is. This passage is right after the great flood, and it is God speaking to Noah and his sons about the reverence that should be shown for human life. He states that animals will be held accountable for taking human lives, and then goes further in saying that a human should be held accountable for taking another human’s life. Why? It is made clear at the end of verse 6. “For God made man in his own image”. Human life is sacred and precious, and though imperfect, reflects the image of God. Rather than encouraging people to kill each other until everyone is gone, God is emphasizing the value of each human life and protecting that value. 

For me, the application of this verse is whenever I consider how I think about other people. It is so easy for me to get caught up in what someone has done or not done to me, to point blame fast, and ultimately hold resentment towards that person. But what happens when I look at them as being made in God’s image? It makes me realize how precious they are. That they are equally as fragile as I am. I need to protect that; I want to acknowledge hurt and, at the same time, be quick to remember that each person is a precious reflection of God, and their life, mind, and heart need to be protected and held in great honor. 

Question: How do I view other people? As an image of God, or an enemy? Do I view myself as a reflection of God? And do I treat myself as though I am precious and worthy of protection? 

Prayer: Jesus, thank you for the cross. Allow me to see others as reflections of you and value them as such. Let me love and protect each precious human life, including considering myself as an image bearer. Thank you for your love. Amen