A few weeks ago, some unusual burglaries were making the news. One thing that sets them apart from the run-of-the-mill break-ins that happen every day in our larger cities was that the victims were well-known professional athletes and Hollywood celebrities. And interestingly, it was their wealth and notoriety that made them uniquely vulnerable targets. Maybe that helps to account for the recent discoveries of massive corruption in our Federal government. Mind-boggling amounts of money extracted from American taxpayers has evidently been misappropriated, misplaced, randomly handed over to shady organizations, and/or just plain ‘lost’. Does it sound too harsh to say that much, if not most, of that money was, in effect, stolen from us? 

Looks Like a Classic Definition ~
This much is certain. Billions of dollars have ended up in someone’s pocket somewhere. It may have been allocated to some department, some agency, some NGO, or other so-called non-profit group, but somebody, somewhere cashed those Federal government checks. Money doesn’t evaporate into the atmosphere. Somewhere along the line, individuals got paid. Every one of those billions of dollars eventually ended up in someone’s personal bank account. Some people got very rich by taking money they didn’t earn, that didn’t belong to them, and they claimed it as their own. To my simple mind, that process sounds a whole lot like the classic definition of a thief. But is there anything to be gleaned from stories like these other than a sense of outrage and renewed prayers for justice and righteousness to be resurrected in our land?

The drama and international intrigue associated with these events are obviously captivating, but at first glance, profound truths and life-changing lessons don’t seem to be leaping off the pages. But they do serve as reminders that God has had some serious things to say about thieves and stealing things. As all of us know, God directly addressed the issue in that list of universal, authoritative, and eternally enduring commands that He delivered to Moses on Mt. Sinai. And in doing so, the living God chose terms that were incredibly brief, simple, and unambiguous. Even in our modern English translations, the command contains no multi-syllable words. In most of our Bibles, the directive requires only four words. God so concisely, so simply said . . . 

“You shall not steal.” (Exodus 20:15 NKJV)

Can’t Be Clearer ~
That command is so clear that even a cadre of government bureaucrats flaunting Harvard law degrees would have a hard time complicating it. Taking what belongs to someone else and claiming it as your own is wrong. It’s as simple as that. Stealing was wrong when God wrote it down for Moses, it’s wrong today, and it will be wrong as long as God lives. He wants our conduct to protect and preserve unity and to promote prosperity. He wants us to enjoy the kind of shalom that characterized the Garden before sin entered and ruined it. Stealing from one another introduces division and invites violence. 

Centuries after God condemned stealing, Jesus used the existence of thieves repeatedly to illustrate various aspects of the profound truths He was teaching. For instance, one prominent example is found in the midst of Jesus’ well-known dissertation on the Good Shepherd. In it, He pointed out the threat posed by thieves to His sheep. Though He didn’t elaborate on the  thieves’ identity, Jesus did underscore their objectives and the impact of their behavior. He said:

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. (John 10:10 NKJV)

 Thieves Are Hard to Spot ~
Given the threat they represent, it would be nice if there was some easy way to identify them before they strike. But some of us who have been victims learned the hard way that thieves don’t always wear masks and creep around in the dark. Sometimes they wear designer suits and carry impressive business cards. Actually, thieves blend in well because they cover nearly the spectrum of demographic categories. They can be male or female – or in our day, any freakish blend of genders a depraved mind can dream up. Thieves can be young, old, or almost anywhere in between. Some are attractive, highly educated and quite clever, while others might be plain looking, functionally illiterate, or even just plain stupid. 

Thieves are identified by what they do, not where they live, how they dress, what language they speak, how they wear their hair, who they voted for, or how many social media followers they do or don’t have. And people don’t become thieves when a judge or jury pronounces them guilty of larceny. They become thieves the moment they reach out and take something of value that rightfully belongs to someone else. As far as what they look like, there are probably thieves somewhere in the world who look remarkably like you and me. And that brings us to the point we want to highlight in this discussion. 

It’s a Personal Thing ~
For the God who condemned it, the issue of stealing isn’t just a theological or sociological matter. For Him, it’s personal. He has been the target of more thieves more often than anyone who ever lived, and those attacks have come almost exclusively from His own people. In at least one area, God indicts His people clearly and directly for stealing from Him. He said through the prophet, Malachi: 

“Will a man rob God?
Yet you have robbed Me!
But you say,‘In what way have we robbed You?’
In tithes and offerings.
You are cursed with a curse,
For you have robbed Me,
Even this whole nation.” (Malachi 3:8–9 NKJV)

Withholding expressions of grateful acknowledgement for God’s provision, which is what tithing actually represents, is not the only way God’s own people steal from Him. Consider, for instance, how we handle another item of inexpressible value that God claims ownership of: 

Or do you [followers of Jesus] not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s. (1 Corinthians 6:19–20 NKJV)

Is Any Stealing Going On?
Is there any chance that some of us might have taken over and claimed ‘as our own’ what Jesus suffered the worst torture of hell itself to acquire? 

• • Might we have considered the ‘mind’ that He gave His life to redeem and sanctify to be little more than an instrument to be used for our own entertainment? 
  • And what about that amazing ‘capacity to love’ that He gave us? Have any of us ever taken possession of the most powerful force for good the world has ever known and used it in ways that dishonor Him? 
  • Could it be that we’ve claimed that ‘beautiful and radiant’ thing as ours to play with and turned it into something ugly, painful, perverted, and destructive? 

If stealing is the act of taking unapproved possession of things that rightfully belong to someone else, given God’s claim of ownership quoted above, what might we call behaviors like those just mentioned?  

Maybe the next time we get outraged because some nameless bureaucrats and government leeches made off with amounts of money we can’t even relate to, we should stop for a moment and find a mirror. Then we should gaze into the familiar reflection looking back at us and think of it differently. We should admit to ourselves that God doesn’t see that reflection like we normally do. He doesn’t focus on the physical defects and criticize the failures it represents. 

God sees a treasure that He paid an awful price to obtain. He sees an asset that He owns and wants to use to expand and enrich His Kingdom. God sees what He could do with it if someone would stop absconding with it and denying Him access to it. God sees the things He could build with it if the squatter claiming it would stop using it to hinder and undermine His work. God sees the strength and resilience He could pour into it if only the one currently claiming it would stop putting toxic garbage in it.

Taking time to reflect on our behavior from God’s perspective might help us realize the impact of selfishly taking control of the body, the mind, the heart He owns. We might even stop to realize how it grieves Him to be denied access to what belongs to Him. We might then understand better what a loss it is for Him when we treat every ‘potential’ that Jesus paid for with His very life as though it belongs to us instead. We might even decide to remind that potential thief in the mirror that the One who loved that person looking back at us enough to die in our place has warned us . . . “You shall ‘not’ steal.”

“TWEETABLES” ~ Click to tweet and share from the pull quotes below.  Each one links directly back to this article through Twitter . . .

• • Stealing was wrong when God wrote it down for Moses; it’s wrong today; it’ll be wrong as long as God lives. He wants our conduct to protect and preserve unity and promote prosperity. Stealing from others introduces division and invites violence. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
  • God doesn’t see our reflection like we do. He doesn’t focus on the physical defects and criticize the failures it represents. He sees a treasure He paid an awful price to obtain – an asset He owns and wants to use to expand and enrich His Kingdom. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
  • God sees a treasure that He paid an awful price to obtain. He sees an asset that He owns and wants to use to expand and enrich His Kingdom. God sees what He could do with it if someone would stop absconding with it and denying Him access to it. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)
  • God sees all He could build with it if the squatter claiming it would stop using it to hinder and undermine His work. He sees the strength and resilience He could pour into it if only the one currently claiming it would stop putting toxic garbage in it. @GallaghersPen (Click here to Tweet)

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