Covenant Break
Read
Exodus 20:14 (KJV) Thou shalt not commit adultery.
What it is speaking to me:
Growing up, the 6th and 7th commandments were the ones you were sure you’d got handled. Check the box, move on to the next command. Because who would murder and cheat, right? Mentally you reduced it to a physical act, and if you hadn’t done it, two down, eight to go.
Except Jesus doesn’t let it stay that small. In Matthew 5, He expands it to our hearts, where the potential sin was hiding the whole time. It would be easy to think that He’s adding a new rule, but in reality He’s just showing us what God meant all along (He is God, after all). The command was never really about JUST the act. It was about faithfulness, and faithfulness is something you can wreck long before you ever act on it.
It’s a commandment about faithfulness to covenant. A marriage covenant. About what you do with your eyes, your imagination, your attention in regard to that covenant. It is about how easily we treat covenant love as optional the moment something else looks more interesting. It shows up in a wandering eye, sure, but it also shows up in the small ways we entertain an emotional connection we know we shouldn’t, or feed our minds on content we’d be ashamed to have someone else see.
Breaking the covenant often isn’t one big act, but a thousand seemingly tiny steps away from it. Faithfulness to the covenant is a decision made to not take the tiny steps at all, much less one big one.
What is it saying to you?
Where have you drawn the line at “I haven’t technically done anything” instead of asking whether your heart is actually faithful?
What’s something small you’ve let slide, in your eyes, your thought life, or your attention, because it felt harmless compared to the “real” version of this sin?
Is there a relationship (with a spouse, or with God) where you’ve been unfaithful in the little things while telling yourself you’re fine because you haven’t crossed the big line?
What are we going to do about it?
Name one specific input, a show, an account you follow, a person you text more than you should, that’s quietly training your heart toward unfaithfulness, and cut it off this week. Don’t negotiate with it. Just remove it. With prejudice.
