Follow Jesus Christ

Christians know the commandment “do not steal.” They read the Bible, go to church, listen to sermons, and sing about holiness and honesty. Yet history reveals an unpleasant fact: religiosity by itself does not protect a person from moral failure. More than that, sometimes a religious person becomes especially skilled at justifying themselves.

American history knows many such cases. It is enough to recall some television preachers of the 1980s and 1990s who collected donations “in the name of God” and then spent the money on lavish homes, cars, and private lives hidden from their congregations. The scandals around Jim Bakker and financial abuses in Christian ministries were a public shock to millions of believers. In other cases, Christian businessmen were found guilty of tax fraud, embezzlement from charitable foundations, or financial pyramids. Sometimes these were people who every Sunday stood in church with their hands raised.

A hard question arises: how is this even possible?

Explanations are usually found. A person tells themselves that the state is unjust, that taxes are too high, that “everyone does it,” that they are merely “borrowing temporarily,” that the church needs the money, or that God will forgive them. But such justifications do not leave no trace. Psychology calls this cognitive dissonance — an inner conflict between who a person believes themselves to be and what they actually do.

If someone believes they are an honest Christian but at the same time steals, tension arises within. And to reduce it, they begin not by changing the action but by changing the explanation for it. Thus an internal split is born. Conscience gradually loses sensitivity. A person becomes capable of praying and deceiving at the same time. Outwardly they remain religious, but their inner person begins to crumble.

Interestingly, the problem is not in the Old Testament. Sometimes you hear, “Well, that’s an Old Testament commandment.” But Jesus explicitly repeats the command “do not steal.” Moreover, He deepens its meaning. In His teaching, evil is not only a formal violation of a rule but a condition of the heart. Jesus constantly speaks about greed, hypocrisy, the exploitation of people, the love of money, and self-deception. If humanity had only the New Testament, the situation would be roughly the same as it is now. Because the problem is not a lack of information but something inside the person.

Then an even harder question comes up. Why does a believer still do evil? There was faith, repentance, baptism, the church. What happened? “Did the devil confuse him?” Or is the person to blame?

Probably many religious people understand spiritual life too simplistically. They think repentance automatically changes a person’s inner nature instantly and completely. But reality shows otherwise. Baptism does not erase psychological trauma, fear, greed, vanity, the desire for power, or the inclination to live at others’ expense. All of these continue to live within a person as potentialities.

A person can know the commandments intellectually and yet utterly fail to grasp their essence. The command “do not steal” is not only a prohibition against reaching into someone else’s pocket. It is a call to learn to see another person as having the same worth as oneself. It is a matter of love of neighbor, justice, and honesty. And such inward understanding takes years.

That is why the theme of growth is so important in Jesus’ teaching. It is no accident that He constantly uses images of trees, fruit, seed, and soil. He is speaking of the gradual transformation of personality, of the slow change of the inner person. True Christianity is not a magical religious ritual but a path.

However, modern religiosity often substitutes this path with mere formality. A person attends church, knows the right words, participates in rites, but hardly ever engages in honest inner reflection. They do not examine their own motives. They do not ask themselves painful questions. They do not learn to notice self-deception. And without that inner work a person remains vulnerable.

Character development in accordance with Jesus’ teaching implies a constant practice of sincere accountability and a willingness to give up self-justifications. It is a hard process. Sometimes humiliating. Because one must admit: evil lives not only “in the world” but inside myself.

Here many believers may experience disappointment. Perhaps salvation really does not happen in a single moment as one might wish. Perhaps the spiritual life is a much longer and more painful process of growth. But there is also hope in that. God does not demand instant perfection. The Gospel constantly shows that Christ patiently works even with imperfect, weak, and conflicted people.

The main thing is not to hide behind a religious mask or turn faith into a system of self-justification. A person who honestly strives for the light gradually begins to see their own darkness. And it is from that moment that real transformation can begin. Conscience becomes not an enemy but an inner compass. And the command “do not steal” ceases to be merely an ancient rule and becomes part of a new heart.