Nougat 8

I don’t recall if it was a chant, the chorus of a thar song or party of my very vivid childhood imagination, but I think we used to parrot the words ‘thieves shall never prosper’ multiple times when we thought we caught a thief at school. And while it was intended to shame the miscreant, it also sent the fear of God into my childhood heart, that I should not steal, lest I come to a bad end. And no, I didn’t have a clue what that ‘bad end’ would be.

When we consider Today’s Holy Nougat, we might discern the root of that childhood chant.

Exodus 20:15 NLT

[15] “You must not steal.

Don’t Steal

As I visited my friend, Strongs, I was struck by the order of the command – ‘You shall steal Not’. It was a little humerous, as I placed a comma in between the Steal and the Not. But, the imperative remains. Steal Not. My real reason for chatting with Strongs though, was to double-check the transliteration of the Hebrew.

Good thing I did. ‘Steal’ is connected to deceive/deception, as well as to kidnapping. I’m sure we all agree that kidnapping is stealing, but did we ever think of it in the context of the Ten Commandments before? Hmmn.

My mind immediately went to the Human Trafficking, and the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. For while there could be arguments agreeing with enslavement in the Bible, there may have been thousands of lives that had been kidnapped.

Go figure

At the elemental level, however, we’re faced with theft … taking that which is not rightfully ours, taking by tricks, coercion, or force. It includes scammers, con artists, and any such traders that profiteer from others deceitfully.

(I’m having to remind myself not to get into the ponzi schemes, Big Pharma drama, health insurance switcheroo games, and all those other white-collar cons that made the news sometime back. But I mention them, lest we are deceived that those are exempt).

For most of us, the visible thefts are clear. Especially crimes committed by ‘those people’, whoever those people are. My godmother-aunty of blessed memory would often get mad about injustice (from road rage to major thefts). In her anger, she’d say, if I were a police officer, I’d lock them up right there. (Hugs Khal n Keish.). Those acts are easy for us to condemn. But what about the items we take from the office for non-office use? What about the time we stole for personal matters, or simply because we could? Are those included in the big 10?

If our hands and eyes are to be removed for adultery (lust), what do we expect to happen to us if we act on the lust and take what is not ours? Matthew 5:30 says that even if it’s our right hand, we remove the offensive body part. Oy!

Self-Check

Is there a need for us to repent of theft in any form? How might we be guilty of theft?

Application

There’s an even more critical case of theft that we need to consider siblings. That’s the issue of robbing God.

Malachi 3:8 is very clear. We can be guilty of robbing God when we opt to withhold our tithes and offering. Some of us use the act of giving to God as a means of control. If our church leaders offend us, we withhold or reduce our tithes. Or we argue that we’re not obliged to tithe, because we’re under a new dispensation. For those who argue the latter, let’s recall that initially in the new dispensation, people sold everything and gave it to the household of faith. Under that dispensation, withholding funds falsely resulted in death. Just ask Ananias and Sapphira … well, maybe not, since they’re dead. Read their story in Acts 5. Truly tragic.

Siblings, theft is not part of God’s plan for us, not from others and definitely not from God. We must guard against such.

Assignment

If God were to show the balance sheet of our lives, is it at all feasible that we’ve been guilty of theft? Let’s revisit the past, restore and make reparations like Zacchaeus.

More so, let’s ensure that our future will not include theft in any form.

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May all we seek be found in Christ