Some Things Might Be Legal But Not Moral - Choose Morality Over Legality Every Time

Leviticus 25:14, 17; Acts 20:35

We can be tempted to take advantage of people without breaking any laws, but by yielding to the temptation, we might just be breaking the most important law - God's moral law.

Soul Food

Leviticus 25:14, 17

“If you sell land to any of your own people or buy land from them, do not take advantage of each other…..Do not take advantage of each other, but fear your God. I am the LORD your God.”

Acts 20:35

“In everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work we must help the weak, remembering the words the Lord Jesus himself said: ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’”

Soul Search

• Have you ever had a situation that you felt needed to be made right and you believed you had the legal grounds in your favor to pursue it?
  Did you follow through?
  Why or why not?

• Just because something is legally right doesn’t always mean that it is morally right.
  Can you recall any situations in your own experience where you did not follow through on legal grounds because you didn’t feel it was morally right to do so?

• Can you recall a time when you took advantage of someone and you know (or knew at the time) that you shouldn’t have?
  Can you talk about it?
  Have you ever made it right?

• Can you recall a time when someone took advantage of you?
  How did it affect you?
  Does it still affect you?

Soul Moves

• If you can recall a time that you took legal action against someone but knew at the time that you shouldn’t OR you know now looking back that you shouldn’t have, is it possible you can do something to correct that decision now?
  What might that correction or restitution look like?

• Ask God to bring to your mind anyone from your past (or even currently) that you might have taken advantage of.
  Allow God’s Word, the Bible, to speak to you about the situation and then ask God to show you how and when you can make the situation right.
  Be prepared that God might ask you to do some pretty tough and humbling things in order to make things right.
  Resist the temptation to run from the hard stuff.

• If you have been taken advantage of, ask God to help you forgive the person or the people who took advantage of you.
  If the injury to you has been especially grievous and difficult for you to get over, ask God to lift that burden from you and to bring fulness of healing to you.