What’s a good meal worth? Five dollars? Ten? Twenty? Fifty?
It depends on our level of wealth. If we’re pinching pennies to make ends meet, then two dollars might be about right.
What if we have zero money? What then? How do we eat? Or is it the Christian thing to go hungry, instead?
Is it ever okay to just take what we need to eat, without paying for it?
Even when we’re starving?
Let’s see what Proverbs 6:30 has to say:
“Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry.”
How’s that? It’s okay to steal food when we’re hungry? The answer the scriptures give is yes, but there’s a catch.
Ahh, there’s always a catch. We can take what we need to satisfy our hunger, but there’s more. If we’ve taken food without paying for it, if we’ve stolen it, there’s a penalty for our deed. It’s in the very next verse.
Proverbs 6:31 tells us the price of our free meal:
“But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.”
God makes it clear: We don’t have to starve. He doesn’t intend for that to be the circumstance of anyone’s life, and he doesn’t condemn us under those conditions. However, that $50 meal will now cost us $350. That’s what sevenfold means. There’s a $300 surcharge because we stole the food instead of buying it.
How about how we treat other people? What’s our penalty for that? Or cheating on our taxes, or running the speed limit, or lying to our spouse?
Ouch, ouch, and ouch.
There are things God understands in a pinch, but that doesn’t mean he approves. As the scripture says, “But if he be found…”
What are those forbidden things worth to us? We need to be careful, because the price we pay may be more than we think the meal is worth.
Our Christian walk is filled with consequences. The ones we want are the blessings that flow from the throne above.
Copyright © 2017 MyChurchNotes.net
Code: FGO.G.09.17a.vp.kjv