This week we will be exploring the tenth commandment in Exodus 20:17, Redeeming Our Desires.
We have reached the last of the Ten Commandments.
Do not covet...anything that is your neighbor's.
It sounds straightforward...but its implications run very, very deep.
Just as the first two commandments aim at our hearts, so does this last one.
What drives you? What do you want? What do you desire?
At the core of our hearts, there is a fuel that motivates us, a desire that we pursue, a longing that we seek to meet.
Of all the commands, this was the one that even the apostle Paul recognized as the greatest conviction on his own heart.
"I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death." (Romans 7:7b-10)
Paul looked deep into his heart and realized that the very things that the law said not to do, he had a desire and an impulse to do.
Sin is rooted in the desires of our heart.
Quite simply we sin because we want to.
And then after sin takes root, we find ourselves in bondage and soon we can't stop even if we want to.
"Each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death." (James 1:14-15)
If transformation is going to take place in us, then it has to begin in our hearts. It must go down to the level of our desires. It is when our desires change, that our direction in life changes.
But this kind of transformation can only happen through the regenerative work of the Spirit of God through the redemptive work of Jesus Christ.
Only He can give us a new spirit and a new heart.
May God transform us from the inside out, giving us an increasing desire for His glory, His goodness, and His great name to be exalted all over the earth...beginning in our own hearts!