Calling out Coveting
It’s around this time of year that Helen will start watching Christmas movies - she loves them. But there’s a darker side to her TV viewing - she is an habitual watcher of “Colombo.” And if you’ve ever watched Colombo you’ll know it always follows the same storyline. It opens with the villain plotting to murder the victim. He or she wants something the victim has, for example their money or their spouse, and the only way to get it is to kill them. …And so the villain does the deed. The rest of the program is Lieutenant Colombo solving the crime - and he ALWAYS gets his man, (or woman). I’ve endured more than a few episodes to know how they run.
Reading James 4:1-3 we see the same process going through the heart of those fixated on wanting what others have. In the extreme it leads to murder, but in the main it’s the source of quarrels and fights. …James asks:
James 4:1-6 NIV [1] What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? [2] You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight. You do not have because you do not ask God. [3] When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.
James is calling out the sin of covetousness. He tells us that behind the sin of fighting, lies the sin of coveting. Fighting, quarrelling, (even murder), is the symptom, coveting is the cause. Indeed it’s one of the Ten Commandments God gave to Israel: “You shall not covet” (Exodus 20:17).
This passage in James asks and and answers the question “why are you fighting?” …and without waiting for a reply, gives the answer - “it’s because you’re coveting.” …Surely its directness helps us to self diagnose the cause of conflict we may have with another person. That conflict may not yet have surfaced in the form of a fight, (and hopefully not murder), but the simmering feelings of jealousy, or the tension we feel when around them, or the sense of being hard done by when comparing our life with theirs, should lead us to examine our own hearts, and to deal with the sin of covetousness. Lets pray.
Heavenly Father you are the giver of good gifts which you give so generously to all who ask. May the eyes of my heart be trained on you as my provider instead of looking greedily at what others have. Forgive me this sin Lord, I’ve committed it far too many times. Amen