Ten Commandments, P10: Be Content, Not Covetous

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house. You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” (Exodus 20:17, NIV)

The final commandment is one that focuses less on outward actions and morality and turns inward. Each command that precedes it has to do with an external act– murder, obeying one's parents, theft, adultery, etc– and takes a look at an internal act that may not be readily apparent to another person, but takes place mostly in our hearts. 

Coveting. Desiring something that someone else has and we don’t. Letting jealousy run rampant in our hearts.

Because coveting goes beyond simple desire or admiring something that you see. Coveting is when desire and admiration spiral out of control into the wrong direction. And in today’s age, the thought process of “I see it, I like it, I want it, I got it,” is all too common. For some, it seems harmless like admiring a pair of shoes and liking them so much you go out and get them for yourself. But in extreme cases, coveting can extend to spouses and significant others, employees, or possessions. 

And this tenth commandment is speaking to a jealousy that would become so obsessed with itself that you would go out and take it from your neighbor. But beyond that level of devious manipulation, it speaks to something much deeper going on in our hearts: discontent. Plenty of people teach against covetousness in the Bible. For one, Paul says in Hebrews 13:5, “Make sure that your character is free from the love of money [covetousness], being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, “I will never desert you, nor will I ever abandon you,’” (NASB). 

If we are looking at things someone else has and find ourselves obsessively jealous over them, it reveals a discontent with what we have and what the Lord has provided us. To covet someone else’s spouse is to be at odds with God’s plan for your future spouse or to be discontent with the spouse God gave you. To covet someone else’s home, family, career path, or car reveals an unhappiness with God’s will for our lives and the place He has us in now.

Have you ever known someone that looked like they had it all and thought to yourself: “Why don’t I have that? Why won’t God let me have the same? I’m faithful. I deserve it. When is it going to be my turn?” And even though that other person seems to have it all, underneath the surface-level image, that person is deeply unhappy even though you think they have everything? It all shows an unhappiness with God’s sovereign plan for us. Of course, God wants you to have the desires of your heart– those things that you pray over and yearn for. But sometimes, we would like to tell God how to bless us in the quickest way possible, and if He doesn’t comply with our ideas, we make ourselves anxious, upset, and jealous.

That discontent wars with our ability to be at peace with where God has asked us to be in our lives. And if we continue to fight against God’s plan, it can spin out of control and end up with us taking matters into our own hands, as if God wasn’t mighty enough to do it. All of a sudden, God’s supremacy in our lives takes a backseat to our own agendas and that desire– that jealousy– becomes an idol that takes God’s rightful place in our hearts.

Paul writes, “For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God.” (Ephesians 5:5, ESV) How would we feel if that object of desire becomes more important than God Himself? Does that thing pale in comparison to an eternity spent with Christ in heaven? Let me reiterate: Paul asserts in that verse that anyone caught in their covetousness is allowing that desire to be an idol that usurps how we should regard the Lord, and that person will not inherit the kingdom of heaven and full communion with God.

Is that not serious enough for us to lay aside our frivolous ideas of what would make us happy? Is that not reason enough for us to let go of our jealous desires and take our eyes off of what our neighbor has in order to put them more firmly on our Savior– the one who is most deserving of all our admiration? 

Even Jesus warns us to keep our covetous nature in check. Why? Because our lives are not weighed in the abundance of what we possess. Our lives are stored up in what we honor the Lord with (Luke 12: 13-21).  Our energy is better spent in honoring the Lord and allowing Him to provide within His will and timing. 

So that spouse you’re waiting on? That family you’re wanting to build? That home you’re wanting to decorate and make your own? That career path you’ve been working for? That dog you want? The car? The friendship? The business? None of it is worth more than the God from whom all those blessings flow. None of it is going to make you more happy or more content than it would be without Him. None of it is worth trading eternal communion with Him when this life– and all those things that come with it– is over.

All these commands, from the tenth counting backwards, all help us to live by the first: You shall have no other gods before me. Not murdering is to deny our anger for someone else and instead, loving them as God loves them. Not bearing false witness is to value truth as the God of Truth does, and living the way He lived. Keeping the Sabbath is putting aside the time to rest just like He did, and devoting the time He is due to be with Him. Not coveting is choosing to be content with the place the Lord has ordained for you to be in at this very moment in time, and living peacefully in the fact that when God wills for you to have something, there is no one and nothing that can keep it from you. 

Every commandment God gave Israel was to help them worship and honor God as the first priority in their lives, both individually and as a nation. Each one was made in order to help them reflect and represent Him as their God and constructed to help them better love Him in return.

It’s the same for us. Those commandments weren’t just written in stone and meant to be forgotten as time went on. They are still for us today, and they are meant to be applied in our lives so we can reflect His image in a dark, desperate world and live a life in the name of loving Him because He first loved us.