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Top X August 2, 2025 Devotional

by David Joynt on August 02, 2025


EXODUS 20:15 | 15 You shall not steal.

 

HEBREWS 13:16 | 16 Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God.

 

We must also look at the eighth command, which forbids theft, through the filter of Jesus’ great love commands. What does the eighth command encourage us to love, respect, and promote? What is the positive lesson, the antithesis of theft?

 

It is sharing, generosity, and empowerment. It is seeing the way our resources and our expertise can help and bless others. When we share knowledge or skill, when we mentor and encourage, we help someone else move toward success. Similarly, when we share our money or property, we exercise our role as stewards in a way that blesses people and also our communities.

 

Who have you empowered or blessed?

 

 

Gracious God,

Help me hold possessions lightly, as opportunities to help and not trophies to keep and defend. Let me be blessed in order to become a blessing.

Amen.

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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