"Be sure your sin will find you out."¹

Zig Zigler, well-known motivational speaker, tells the story about a thief who was robbed. The incident took place back in 1887 in a small neighborhood grocery store when a middle-aged gentleman, Emanuel Nenger, gave the assistant a $20 note to pay for the turnip greens he was purchasing. When the assistant placed the note in the cash drawer she noticed that some of the ink from the $20 came off on her hands, which were wet from wrapping the turnip greens.

She'd known Mr. Nenger for years and was shocked. She pondered, "Is this man giving me a counterfeit $20 note?" She dismissed the thought immediately and gave him his change. But $20 was a lot of money in those days so she notified the police who, after procuring a search warrant, went to Emanuel Nenger's home where they found in his attic the tools he was using to reproduce the counterfeit $20 notes. They found an artist's easel, paint brushes, and paints which Nenger was using to meticulously paint the counterfeit money. He was a master artist.

The police also found three portraits that Nenger had paintedâ€"paintings that sold at public auction for a little over $16,000! The irony was that it took him almost as much time to paint a $20 note as it did to paint those portraits that sold for more than $5,000 each.

The man who robbed Emanuel Nenger was Emmanuel Nenger. We do the same whenever we cheat or break the lawâ€"including God's lawsâ€"for illegitimate gain. And while most of us wouldn't rob another person of his or her material possessions, it is very easy to rob a person's reputation through idle gossip.

We also rob and cheat ourselves when we don't give our tithes² to God for his work, and to others in needâ€"whether it is of our time, talents, money, other resources, or love.

Suggested prayer: "Dear God, help me never to rob myself, or steal from any person in any way. And especially help me never to rob from you. Help me, too, to be a giver and not a taker. Thank you for hearing and answering my prayer. Gratefully, in Jesus' name, amen."

1. Numbers 32:23.
2. See Malachi 3:8-10.

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