Are You Coveting That Fancy Car That You Want?

AI Generated Transcript (I only fixed the mis-spelling of my name and added ONE paragraph break - I left the rest of the mess just the way AI delivered it haha):

You must have the new nice car. Welcome to Jon's Voice Notes, where I, Jon, sort through some idea or another, whatever I want to say today, stream-of-consciousness style, with no preparation in advance. I'm currently stuck in a little, kinda, corner of a road. There's loud construction going on nearby, and some motorized sounds, and I even hear some mooing. So there's some cows nearby. But once I look past this kind of rubbish pile in front of me, there is a beautiful landscape of fields and trees, and yet another beautiful, I would still call it a spring day, here in northern Illinois, although some people would start calling it summer now, because it is June.

But today I want to talk about coveting and desiring, and are they always the same thing? So, you see a car. Your friend got a nice, shiny car. And you look at that car, and you like that car, and you think, I want one. Maybe you go out and take action to see if you can get one. You have some money saved up, or you can afford it, or maybe you do something to try and, you know, get a side job, but you want to get a similar or different car, but a nice car also. Is that sin? Is that what covetousness is? I want to say that, well, it could be sin in other ways, but it is not the same thing, I think. I think. This is what I think. Let me know what you think.

I don't think coveting is just being inspired to want something because you see somebody else has it. I don't think that's what coveting is. I think coveting involves some sort of an ill intent towards the person that has it. I want their stuff. So, it's not, I want your nice car. I want to take your car from you. It's, I see you have a nice car, and now I kind of want one. Now, again, that may or may not be sin in other ways, but I don't think that's what covetousness is.

What if you're a young man, and you see your friend marrying a beautiful girl, and it just puts this kind of emptiness and hunger in the pit of your stomach, and you see how happy they are, and you're trying not to think about the wonders of their wedding night, and you hopefully succeed, and don't. But the point is, now you, it makes you think that you want to get married, too. You want to find a beautiful girl. Obviously, this is from a man's perspective. Flip it all if you're a gal. Is that coveting your neighbor's wife? Not necessarily. I mean, you could, if you in your heart are eating yourself up, because you want your friend's wife, you're coveting your neighbor's wife. You're desiring to have something that is forbidden, and that is somebody else's. This is evil. But if it just inspires you to think, I want this, too. I want this for my life, too. I've got to get ready. That could be good or bad. It's not inherently sinful, though.

It could be bad if you're always comparing yourself to others, and you're in the bondage of the rat race. You've got to get ahead of your neighbor, or you are unable to say no, or deny yourself. You're always pursuing things, things, things. Those things can all be bad. But in and of itself, if I had a son, and he saw that his friend just got a new bike, and he was seeing how much fun his friend had, and he's like, I want a new bike. Look at that. That's nice. And now, if he wasn't jealous, if he wasn't angry at his friend and bitter, if he was just delighting in the idea of having the same benefit and blessing that his friend had, I might talk to my son and say, remember when you were mowing lawns last year, and you made money for whatever? Maybe it's time to get out there and earn some money to get yourself a new bike.

So he's trained to connect hard work with getting what you want. But when he saw his friend's bike, and he himself desired a new bike, is that covetousness? I think covetousness is basically theft in the heart. It's where in your heart you want to steal their thing. You want their bike. I want to take their bike from them and make it mine. There are other sins available in wanting too many things, but wanting something, desiring something, even if it's inspired by what other people have, is not in and of itself covetousness.

I mean, how could someone not desire the life they see someone having in a prosperous town in America if they came from somewhere where they barely had food? How could they not have a desire inside, I want this for me and my family and my country? How could you not have that desire? So desire is not sin. Desire is not in and of itself covetousness. It can be made into sin, it can be made into covetousness, but it is not in and of itself.

I've often heard it said that Jesus upped the law. He made it even more strict when he said in the New Testament that even if you look at a woman lustfully you've committed adultery with her in your heart, for example. And everyone says, see he's made the law even more strict. I don't think that's true. I don't think that's what happened here. Jesus didn't make the law more strict because the 10th commandment already said, do not covet your neighbor's wife. If you are looking at your neighbor's wife lustfully, you are coveting her. If you are wanting with a disordered desire any woman that is not an actual option for you, that may be coveting or another sin. But that isn't Jesus making the law more strict. He's applying the Ten Commandments in that talk.

So I mean, if I saw a young man and he, you know, has met a beautiful girl and he desires to date her with the potential of eventually marrying her. He doesn't just want to play with her heart. He's serious. I'm not gonna tell him that desire is wrong. That desire is good and beautiful. It comes from God. What, even if it was inspired because he saw others that were happy when they married their beautiful girls. You know, so can he sin? Can he go on into lust? He can, yeah. But there's a level of desire that's just, God, God did that. He did that. He made it so a young man would be walking along and say, well, who in the world is that? God did this. We can turn it into sin, but God did it. And it's not covetousness.

So hopefully that helps you see the difference. We, I think, I agree with C.S. Lewis. We need more desire in our lives, not less. We just need to desire the good things of God, which includes, by the way, finding a beautiful wife and marrying her, or finding a handsome husband and marrying him, and working to build a life together of love and joy, or working to make your fields more prosperous so you can do more amazing things with your house, or working to learn a skill that will get you paid better so that you can have more for providing a better life for your family. All these desires are good. They're not bad. They're not covetousness. They're not sin in and of themselves. We are capable of turning just about anything into sin, but it's not automatically covetousness. Hopefully that gives you something to think about today. 

Thank you for listening. Jon and Jon's Voice Notes signing off.