Do Not Steal

(click on the pic to listen to it)

Have you been stolen from? You know what that feels like? You go out to your car, somebody broke into it. You come home and your home is totally trashed, you feel violated. You realize somebody took your identity. All of a sudden ,you’re getting bills for things that you didn’t buy, and you’ve got to negotiate and explain all of that.

There are two incidents that stick out vividly in my mind. When we lived in Sidney, our house was broken into. I don’t remember them taking much. They just left our house a complete mess. Things were thrown everywhere. What I remember most is  feeling like I was violated. The worst part of them being in our house was that they peed in our toilet and didn’t flush it. It was disgusting.

The second time was when we lived in Anderson.  Someone had stolen my blue Mazda truck. I had made it pretty easy on them by leaving a spare key in a little compartment. Below the key was a credit card that I had forgotten about.  On this occasion I was hoping they would not find my truck. We had it fully insured and I was looking forward to getting a newer one. They found it a few weeks later abandoned out in the country by a bar.

As far as me stealing anything, I stole money from my brothers. I stole candy from the Pink Store. I stole shoe strings from a JC Penney just because I could.  I stole time from first employer by quitting early and going to play video games. I only did it a couple of times. I was always afraid I would get caught. So, I stopped. This employer was extremely kind. They paid all my fees for going through a temp agency. Needless to say I felt terrible when I stole that time from them.

When I stole those things – I felt tremendous guilt. I knew in my heart and head that I was doing something wrong.  When I stole the .30 cent shoe strings. My heart was beating fast. My mind was wandering, “am I going to get caught.” It was so traumatic I remember that they were brown shoe strings which I didn’t need and that they cost .30 cents.

Look at these scriptures:

Exodus 20:15 says, You must not steal.

Leviticus 19:11 says, You must not steal.

Exodus 4:28  says, If you are a thief, quit stealing. Instead, use your hands for good hard work, and then give generously to others.

Do not steal is one of the obvious commandments. But it is a commandment many break more often than we think. In the Old and New Testament you read accounts of people stealing. Jacob stole Esau’s blessing and birthright in Genesis 25 and 27. In Gen. 25 Esau was hungry and he “sold” his birthright for a bowl of stew. In reality Jacob stole Esau’s birthright. He took what really wasn’t his. In Gen 27 Jacob then stole Esau’s blessing (with the help of his mother) by pretending to be Esau. They deceived Isaac by putting goat hair on Jacob’s smooth skin and Jacob served him a hot meal prepared by his mother. In the New Testament in Acts 5 you have the story of Ananias and Sapphira. They sold some property. They didn’t have to but they did. The agreement was to give the full amount of the money from selling the property to the cause of the disciples. Both of them lied and said they gave the full amount. Both of them “embezzled” some money off the top. They kept the money they promised to give. They both died before they reached the exit door. You have Judas, one of the 12 disciples, who is claimed to had stolen from the money Jesus and the disciples used to live off of.

Stealing is a big deal. It is sometimes passed off as cheating, deceit, or manipulation – but whatever you call it, when you end up with something that is not rightfully yours –  you have stolen it.

Stealing also comes in other forms……

According to a report in US News that was conducted by Hayes International Consultants, the average employee steals 5.5 times more than the average shoplifter. It’s almost impossible to calculate the total loss, but the estimates are that companies lose $200 billion a year through employee theft of stock or supplies. In addition to stealing items, employees are guilty of stealing time. Have you ever wasted time at work? According to a report on Salary.com, the average employee wastes a little over two hours a day. OK, eight-hour workday, one-hour lunch, two hours wasted, 2.09 hours wasted. Some people look and say, “What’s the big deal? That doesn’t bother me.” It would if it was your company. It is not a big deal to us if we don’t own it or we are not the manager.

In 2008, the USA today had a story that church giving, congregants give an average of 2.58% of their income to their churches. That’s down from 3.11% of their income in 1968, according to studies published by Empty Tomb, a ministry that studies church finances. Most people don’t think that not giving 10% to the church is stealing. We say our money and stuff are ours. Let me correct this myth. Everything you have has been given to you by God.  Your job, your money, and all your other stuff, the air you breathe, the heart beat you have, the arms, feet, hands, and brain that you have has all been given to you by God. The Scriptures continue to teach us that God gives us everything and he also allows it to be taken away.  If you don’t believe it – read the story of Job. He controls everything.  God is simply very generous in giving us the responsibility of taking care of 90%. Since the beginning of time,  mankind has been asked but not forced to give 10% back to God.  God gives the opportunity to continue the work of the church through sacrificial giving. Since we don’t use bulls, goats, and birds anymore for payment, we are called to use the current currency. The minor prophet Malachi tells the nation of Israel you are robbing God if you are not tithing. Whether you believe in tithing or not is not the issue because God asks us to always go the second mile any way and be generous with our resources.

Many Christ followers are like Ananias and Sapphira when it comes to this issue.  Tithing and giving back to God is not a requirement for salvation, but because of God’s generosity towards us why wouldn’t we want to be generous in helping advance the Kingdom of God. We are like Ananias and Sapphira in the sense that we say we are a part of the community of believers but we give what WE feel right to give and we keep the rest for ourselves. Aren’t you glad that God doesn’t do stuff to people  anymore like what he did to Ananais and Sappira? Statistics tells me that most of us wouldn’t make it out the door.

The bottom line is this there are many forms of stealing.  And whatever it is in we are not to do it. Why? Because stealing destroys trust.  We don’t trust God to provide what we need so we give our self permission to take it because we need it more than they do. It is also difficult to trust the person who has done the stealing.

There are still a number of other ways that we steal. There is also embezzling, unreasonably high interest rates, unfair payday loans, rigged gambling, break-ins, unjust taxation, burglary, larceny, hijacking, shoplifting, extortion, racketeering, underpaying your taxes, filing false insurance claims, governmental waste, excessive national debt, falsely billing clients and/or falsely billing an employer, misappropriating company funds, killing time at work, not paying your employees, taking supplies and/or stocks, stocked goods and items from your employer, taking intellectual property, plagiarism, illegal downloads, identity theft, etc. It’s a lot, right? Technology has opened a new opportunity for thievery.

We are stealing from each other all the time! Even Christians are stealing from one another.

So what does all this mean for those who are Christ followers? Most of us work for someone else. We are what the scriptures refer to as someone’s “bondservant”. Some translations use the word slave.

Titus 2:9–10, “Slaves are to be submissive to their own masters in everything.” In our culture, the equivalent is not identical, but the closest we can get is employers and employees—those in authority, those under authority.

“They are to be well-pleasing”—have a good attitude, do a good job—“not argumentative”—don’t fight all the time and be the source of trouble and conflict at your place of employment—“not pilfering”—there’s the eighth commandment: no stealing—“but showing all good faith, so that in everything they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior.”

Here’s the big idea, Paul is saying: Your work is your witness.  Some people say, “I don’t know how to be a good witness at work.” Start by doing good work, doing a good job, having a good attitude, performing well, submitting, respecting the authority that is over you, following through with the things that they delegate to you. That’s where it begins. I read a story this past week of two young Christian men. They were both  new in the faith and new to the job. They were hired by the Marriott Hotel. They both were hired in as bell hops. One of the young men liked to read his Bible while he was standing at the bell stand. The guests were walking by and needing help with their bags or trying to get a car or load stuff in or out of their vehicle, and he would just sit there reading his Bible. One of the employees came over and confronted him and said, “Hey, you need to pay more attention to the guests.” He’s said, “Hey, God is my first priority and nothing is more important than studying the Bible.” Needless to say, Bible reading,  was not a part of his job description. An older gentleman of the faith who had worked there for a number of years and was a fellow believer sat the young man down and told him he needed to do his reading on  his break time not company time.

To put this in simple terms: we are not to steal from our employers.

As Christ followers we need to work hard. We need to be the example. Even Jesus submitted himself to the authority of men. (Philippians 2) and became a servant with no pay! Even if you don’t like your job – we need to be the example. We are called to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. The way you do that is not being part of the statistic I shared earlier where the average American worker waste 2.09 hours a day doing stuff other than what we are hired to do.

As Christ followers we need to do our job well. We need to do it ethically and we need to honor our employer. Whether we like it or not our work ethic is part of our witness. To work poorly is a poor witness. It robs God of the opportunity of softening people’s heart towards him. When you work poorly it convinces those outside of the faith that they were right about Christians. They are just a bunch of hypocrites who use Jesus as a crutch.

As I mentioned earlier in this blog entry when you end up with something that is not rightfully yours –  you have stolen it. The most obvious form of stealing is taking someone’s stuff.  Even if there wasn’t a commandment that said not do it – there is still something not right about it. Stealing is an incredibly selfish act that does an immense amount of damage to everyone involved. Some people think that stealing is a victimless crime, because it’s just things. Yet, stealing not only means taking something you didn’t earn, but it also can cause people to feel vulnerable and less safe, even if they weren’t physically harmed in the theft.

How we can make this personal?

To put it simply, if the stuff doesn’t belong to you don’t take it. Know in your heart it is wrong and never convince yourself it is right at any time. I love the ending of Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Charlie has the everlasting gob stopper in his pocket and was treated very harshly by Mr. Wonka and was asked to leave the factory. Willie was asked earlier by a “competitor” to share that secrets of the gob stopper. Willie did the right thing and returned the gob stopper. If you haven’t seen it take some time to watch the ending.

If you are an employee – give your employer your best. Work hard. Work honestly. Work unselfishly. Employers have enough whiners and complainers. As Christ followers I don’t think we need to be a part of the problem. We need to be a part of the solution and honor our employers. After all, we are called to be the light of the world and the salt of the earth. Our work places are a great place to be the salt of the earth and light of the world.

If you are a Christ follower give to God what is Gods and give to Caesar what is Caesars and keep the rest and do with it what you want. The philosophy of the world is “Get all you can, can all you get, and then sit on the can!” John Wesley put a Christian twist on that philosophy and it set him free. He taught, “Earn all you can, save all you can, and give all you can.” This is what we are called to do as Christ followers. Don’t rob others of being blessed. Don’t rob yourself of being a blessing. Don’t rob God of the opportunity of using you and your resources.

What if someone steals your stuff? Forgive them because they don’t know what they are doing. They are never going to steal the old stuff that means nothing to you. That’s the stuff we sale at garage sales or give to Salvation Army, Goodwill, etc….

To sum all of this is simple terms:

• Be witness in your work place by being a person of integrity.
• Be generous with the stuff you have – you don’t own it any way
• Don’t take stuff that doesn’t belong to you.