Covetousness

'Covet' means to crave or desire, especially when in excessive or improper ways. The Tenth Commandment does not tell us what all of our desires are immoral: It tells us that some desires are wrong.

Coveting is an immoral longing for something that is not rightfully ours. This is usually because the object of our desire already belongs to someone else. But coveting can also include our wanting far more than we would legitimately deserve or that would be our rightful share. The aim is that we are not to illicitly desire anything that already belongs to others.

The opposite of coveting is a positive desire to help others preserve and protect their blessings from God. Our desire should be to contribute to the well-being of others, to make our presence in their lives a blessing to them.

However, our natural inclination is always to think of ourselves first. We are far more interested in what we can get rather than what we can give. God tells us to stop thinking of ourselves and to quit seeking only our interests. Coveting is the selfish approach to life, and selfishness is the root of our transgressions of God's laws, "Then when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death" (James 1:15). If not controlled, what begins as a thought becomes an obsession that leads to an act. All of us have "conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind", (Ephesians 2:3).