The Ten Commandments: A 10-Day DevotionalSample

You Shall Not Covet

Coveting is idolatry (Col. 3:5). It says I can’t live without that person, place, or possession. It makes a god out of our desires. The tenth commandment is not anticlimactic afterthought. “Don’t murder. Don’t commit adultery. Don’t steal. Don’t lie. And try to be happy with what you have.” The command not to covet is actually the practical summation and heart-level culmination of the other nine commandments.

The Bible says our problem is not that we desire things but that we desire the wrong things or desire good things in the wrong way. As C. S. Lewis famously put it, the problem is not that we desire too much, but that we desire too little, “like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.” We want fleeting worldly pleasures. But God doesn’t say to us, “Shame on you for wanting things.” He says, “I can give you something much better and more lasting than all the world’s trivial trinkets.”

Reflect

Why is coveting idolatrous? Where are you tempted to such idolatry in your own life? 

The Ten Commandments: What They Mean, Why They Matter, and Why We Should Obey Them by Kevin DeYoung will help you understand, obey, and delight in God’s law—command ments that expose our sinfulness and reveal the glories of God’s grace to us in Christ.