The ninth commandment, "You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor," can be a little harder to keep than the others. We are not to lie. There are bald-faced lies, of course. (I resent that term, by the way.). But there are times when you don't want to tell the truth because you know it will hurt someone.

I had a few people raise this question: "Once God saves us and the Spirit begins his renewing work in our lives, shouldn't that work of inward renewal become a source of our assurance? Isn't that at least one way we can know we're right before God?"

My granddaughter Stella loves to pick flowers. She will come to me and, with a smile of her beautiful face, say, "These are for you, Papa!" It always warms my heart.

Stealing is such a widespread problem in our culture today. And among those who know stealing is wrong, it is interesting why they think it is wrong. A study was done among those who stole or thought about stealing, and the question was asked, "Why don't you steal?" The number one reason given was, "I might get caught." Number two was, "The other person might try to get even." And reason number three? "I might not need the item."

One of the first things people tend to do in times of hardship is to point a finger, trying to find someone or something to blame for their adversity. If we are hurting in life, certainly it must be someone else's fault, right?