COVETOUSNESS IS IDOLATRY – PART 3
From The HeartPublish date: 05/02/2005
So six days before the Passover Feast, Jesus came to
Six days before the Passover Feast, Mary takes a pound of ointment of pure liquid nard - a rare perfume that was very, very expensive - and she pours it on Jesus' feet and wipes them with her hair. The whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Judas Iscariot throws a fit over the “waste” of this perfume, insisting that it could have been sold and given to the poor! The only problem was that Judas did not care about the poor one iota and it looked like he did not care about Jesus either. What he did was to reveal his own evil motives and his disrespect for Jesus.
Jesus was one of his closest friends. They traveled everywhere together, along with the other eleven disciples. Jesus had spent every single day of about three years with him. Judas had seen Jesus’ miracles and heard His anointed teaching. You would think that Judas would think that Jesus was worth a years worth of wages. You would think that Judas would be blessed by the blessing that Jesus received. But he was not. Instead he was quite angry and upset. In fact, in Matthew 26:6-16, after the woman emptied her alabaster box on Jesus head, Judas was so bent out of shape that he went straight out to negotiate with the chief priests over his planned betrayal of Jesus!
How did Judas come to this place in his life that he could go out and make such a terrible choice – to betray a beloved friend? The answer lies in what was hidden - not so deep - in his heart. His responsibility was to keep the treasury bag, which belonged to Jesus and the disciples, but instead of guarding it, he was stealing from it. He was stealing from his closest friends; he had given in to temptation; he had become covetous, selfish, greedy and a liar.
When people do things they know are wrong, their own conscience convicts them. At that point they do one of two things: stop, repent and make restitution, or they push their conscience away, hardening their heart, justifying their own actions, and finding fault, instead, with the very people they are sinning against! When Judas gave in to his covetousness and he stole money out of the bag, his conscience was compromised and his judgment skewed. He was now fully in deception. It did not concern him at all that he had betrayed an innocent man, until it was too late.
Covetousness is defined in Luke
What leads to strife (discord and feuds) and how do conflicts (quarrels and fightings) originate among you? Do they not arise from your sensual desires that are ever warring in your bodily members? 2 You are jealous and covet [what others have] and your desires go unfulfilled; [so] you become murderers. [To hate is to murder as far as your hearts are concerned.] You burn with envy and anger and are not able to obtain [the gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek], so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask. 3[Or] you do ask [God for them] and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is [when you get what you desire] to spend it in sensual pleasures. James 4:1-3 AMP
It is vital that we eliminate a selfish, covetous spirit from our lives, and the only way to do it is to move in the opposite spirit by being a blessing; working with our hands, earning money, and giving to God and others.