Over recent years and months, world land values have escalated dramatically. Many people, particularly in the Western world, have purchased bigger and better homes, cars, and other luxuries that they would not otherwise have been able to afford. They have indulged by taking equity from the value of their homes, increased their mortgages and generally had a big spend up. Additionally, credit card debt has soared. The reality of painful payback day is here. Interest rates are increasing with the prospect of more increases to come. Families at the limit of their new budgets are increasingly unable to make ends meet. Added to that is the shocking escalation of fuel prices and its effect on other commodities, including the essentials of food and clothing.

The inevitable day is here when we must prepare for a drastic downturn in our standard of living. As well as paying penalties for our own covetousness, we all have to pay for others’ covetousness, including that of the banks, the oil rich and the tax rich.

Mankind is being scourged and the Earth is writhing in pain because of the breaking of a much-overlooked commandment: “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour’s wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour’s” (Exodus 20:17).

What does covetousness include? Lust; greed; competition; meanness; selfishness; gluttony; extortion; dishonest gain; trying to get something for nothing; get-rich-quick schemes; envy; desiring someone else’s possessions, job, responsibilities, authority and position, wife, baby or property; bad sportsmanship; buying what you can’t afford; running up debt; and many more evils—when you apply the spirit of God’s law.

Simply, coveting is the motive of wanting to get for one’s self, often at the expense of others. It includes desiring or lusting after something that rightfully belongs to someone else or something forbidden by God’s law. God’s way to success and happiness, by contrast, is the way of giving and serving.

Now, we are directly blessed as we keep all 10 of God’s commandments by the spirit, or conversely, cursed if we contravene them.

God places tremendous importance on the Tenth Commandment because covetousness is the seed of sin.

Covetousness strikes the match that lights the fuse in the human mind that intensively and progressively burns toward the subsequent explosion of pain and suffering that sin generates. All sin starts in the mind and, if allowed to develop, will result in a sinful act with a definite penalty.

“[E]very man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death” (James 1:14-15).

We must recognize our own covetousness at the onset and resist being sucked down the vortex to sin and the resultant penalties. “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he …” (Proverbs 23:7).

Covetousness exemplifies the get way, which is the opposite of God’s way—the way of give.

In several biblical examples, covetousness leads to stealing, adultery, lying and murder, bringing tragic curses on those who broke this key commandment. This sin destroyed greedy men like Achan (Joshua 7) and Ahab (1 Kings 21 and 22), as well as power-hungry men like Korah, Dathan and Abiram (Numbers 16); it cost kings like Saul their crown (1 Samuel 15); it almost cost David his eternal life (Psalm 51; 2 Samuel 12); and it has destroyed an entire era of God’s Church in this end time (Revelation 3:14-19).

Covetousness scourges us; we need to keep as far away from it as possible. Here are seven ways to help prevent covetousness.

1. Ask God to help you recognize your covetousness and identify it at the onset.

If your desire is “off limits,” remember that it has no future except trouble. Remember covetousness will lead to a sinful act and a definite penalty.

2. Be grateful for and content with what you have.

Covetousness and contentment cannot coexist. Covetousness is the roadblock to contentment. If you strive to be content, however, this will push covetous thoughts out.

The Apostle Paul gave us his example in Philippians 4:11: “… I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content.” In Hebrews 13:5, he wrote: “Let your conversation [conduct] be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

3. Get your thinking away from the world’s ways.

Focus on eternal life in the Family of God. If our minds focus on the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, the pathetic, temporary desires we have now will mean absolutely nothing. 1 John 2:15-16 state: “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If a man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.”

In contrast, Colossians 3:2 commands: “Set your affection [mind] on things above, not on things on the earth.”

4. Don’t buy what you cannot afford.

If you do, you’ll end up in debt. “The rich ruleth over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender” (Proverbs 22:7). That is a stiff price for covetousness.

5. Avoid get-rich-quick schemes and trying to get something for nothing.

Take gambling, for example. Proverbs 13:11 tells us: “Wealth gained by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labour shall increase.”

6. Remember that God promises to provide for the righteous.

King David said toward the end of his dramatic life full of immense trials and experiences: “I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed [family] begging bread” (Psalm 37:25).

Jesus Christ said, “Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matthew 6:31-34).

7. Displace covetousness by actually living the give way.

Giving is the way of love and unselfishness; it comes from the mind of God. It includes serving, helping and sharing.

At Christ’s return, the government of God will be established at Jerusalem to rule all nations. The foundation of that government will be the Ten Commandments. God’s Spirit will permeate this new, happy, abundant, joyful civilization led by the King of kings. What a wonderful world it will be then. The scourge of the overlooked Tenth Commandment will cease, and man will keep God’s law of love in spirit and in truth.