October 21 – LD 42, Day 7: The Heart Lesson of the Eighth
Commandment
by Pastor Steven Key
II Corinthians 8:9: “For
ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that, though He was rich, yet for
your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.”
The eighth commandment
teaches a powerful and blessed lesson to us who are in Christ Jesus.
In the first place, this
eighth commandment, as all the other commandments, exposes our own sinfulness.
It exposes not only our sinful deeds in the failure to exercise faithful
stewardship, but more particularly, it exposes the sins of our hearts. How
plagued we are with covetousness as it pertains to earthly possessions! How
little thought we give to the sovereign mercies of God in what He has given us!
How pitifully weak is our exercise of stewardship! How great is our need for
Christ! Don’t you see? For this stealing that has characterized our lives in
many different forms is a sin that calls for the execution of God’s righteous
justice. But Christ has delivered us from the bondage of this sin too. He did
so by bearing the punishment for our guilt, even to the death of the cross. He
did so by becoming poor, that we through His poverty might be rich.
Now, by the work of His
Holy Spirit, our Lord Jesus Christ has instilled in our hearts a love for Him
and for the neighbour, a love which also will express
its gratitude by seeking God’s will concerning earthly possessions. By the
wonder of God’s grace, we are made servants of God rather than slaves to the
world. We have been transformed from being slaves to material things and
seekers of earthly possessions which do not last, to servants of God and
stewards in His everlasting house.
In that light, we see
that God’s law is sweet. It leads us to the positive calling of godliness with
contentment, which is great gain. Contentment is the grace of the Holy Spirit
in our hearts whereby we are happy in the way in which God leads us. That is
ours because we are rich — rich toward God. You are, aren’t you? When you see
that, then you also confess with the apostle in II Cor
9:8, “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always
having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work.”