What makes us covet? What makes us yearn for something we don't have? Don't we know that if we can't have it and we gain it through our own means, we have to keep it hidden? We can't show it off- for that would reveal our sin and if we have to hide it, is it really a treasure?
When my brother Lee and I were much younger, I secretly took five dollars out of my father's pants which were lying on his bed. I ran out of our two bedroom frame house to the farthest boundary of our yard. I then recruited my brother to dig a hold so that we could hide the five dollar bill and when the coast was clear; we could return and retrieve the money for goodies. Little did we know that our neighbor, and elderly lady was sitting in her screened-in porch and had witnessed everything we had done. It was not long before she called my mother to tell her what we were up to. We were soon discovered and we had to own up to our guilt and return the money. I can assure you, our act did not go unpunished we were disciplined.
In telling that story these words caught my eye. I did it in secret, I recruited another to take part in my sin I was eventually discovered, and then came the discipline.
Today, we put so much effort into hiding from God. We still think we are running from him when all along, he sees our every move fueled by our greed and envy. He does not confront us because he gives us every opportunity to repent on our own. Hiding our sin only binds us to it ...it does not make it go away.
God calls us to repentance and confession....we can't hide from Him.
The Lord said to Joshua "Stand up! What are you doing on your face?" Israel has sinned; they have violated my covenant which I commanded them to keep. They have taken some of the devoted things; they have stolen, they have lied, they have put them with their own possessions..."
Joshua 7: 10-11
When I saw in the plunder; a beautiful robe from Babylonia, two hundred shekels of silver and a wedge of gold weighing fifty shekels, I coveted them and took them. They are hidden in the ground inside my tent, with the silver underneath. Joshua 7:21
Read the entire story in Joshua 7
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