Slippery Cards…Hello Hump Day readers! I have a devotion that includes Costco, Netflix, and America the Beautiful Senior Passes and Access Passes. Yes, this sounds crazy but it is kind of like a sequel of another devotion I recently shared about not playing by the rules.

Let’s start with passes. Here at the campground, we have many seniors and people with disabilities that have passes for camping, National Parks, etc. When you’re 62, you can purchase your Senior Pass. When I sell one of those, I make sure of their DOB. You would be surprised how many don’t want me to see that, then they admit they aren’t 62 yet. Worse, kids “steal” their elder’s pass so they can get half-off at the campground. The same happens with the disability pass they use (or steal) from a friend or family. They aren’t disabled! Now they are stealing a site from someone who is truly disabled and needs that site. I remind them that I could give them a citation for fraud; they just look at me and say “whatever.”

On to Costo. You purchase your membership in Coscto (or other stores like it) and your card is for you only. Sadly, the company has noticed that non-members have been sneaking in to use membership cards that don’t belong to them and it’s easy to get away with it using the new self-check-out lanes. So, the warehouse club retailer will now ask for shoppers’ membership cards along with a photo ID to use the self-checkout registers. Their CEO said: We don’t feel it’s right that nonmembers receive the same benefits and pricing as our members,” and he is complete right!

And last—Netflix. They have recently cracked down on members sharing passwords. For a while they turned a blind-eye but the bottom-line was impacted financially in ways they never thought of. Statistics showed them that more than 100 million households worldwide shared their accounts with non-members! Their new policy is now paying off and ticking off a lot of folks who now have to pony-up.

Just using only three samples, makes me ready to up-chuck! We are on a slippery-slope when we think it is OK to steal, and these above samples are definitely stealing. Does this only affect people without faith? I’d love to say yes, but sadly the percentage is no different from any other faith or non-faith. The slippery-slope is now getting steeper than ever and God’s tears continue to flow.

I recollect that the 10 Commandments have a rule about stealing. In Exodus 20:15 from the Amplified Bible it says: “You shall not steal [secretly, openly, fraudulently, or through carelessness].” In Zechariah 5:3 [CEV] it says: “Then he told me: This scroll puts a curse on everyone in the land who steals or tells lies. The writing on one side tells about the destruction of those who steal, while the writing on the other side tells about the destruction of those who lie.” In Matthew 19 where the rich man questions what is right, Jesus replies: “‘Do not murder, do not commit adultery, do not steal, do not bear false witness…” And one more from Romans 13:9—pay close attention to the last quote: “Do not commit adultery,” “Do not murder,” “Do not steal,” “Do not covet,” and any other commandments, are summed up in this one decree: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Jesus was right about ‘Love your neighbor as yourself’. When we illegally share our cards or passwords with a friend, we are not loving them—we are flaunting the rules which sets a very bad example. And sadder yet, are the retorts, as I said above, where “whatever—what’s your problem—or worse “big companies make too much money anyway.” Have we become so numb that we don’t care about crime? Stealing doesn’t have a percentage level, from small to big it IS stealing, period.

In closing, I get to say something positive. Yesterday a young man came in and found a wallet in one of our shower-houses. It was burgeoning with money, tempting indeed, but in his Texas accent he said, “Miss Cyndy, this isn’t mine, wish it was, but it doesn’t belong to me. Hope you can find out who lost it.” How refreshing! The morale of the whole story here is to be honest, care for others more than yourself, be a good example and do what is right. It’s the practice we all need to exercise daily and when we do, God’s tears turn to joy! AMEN.