Acts 5:1-11
New International
Version (NIV)
5 Now a man named Ananias,
together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. 2 With his wife’s full
knowledge he kept back part of the money for himself, but brought the rest and
put it at the apostles’ feet.
3 Then Peter said,
“Ananias, how is it that Satan has so filled your heart that you have lied to
the Holy Spirit and have kept for yourself some of the money you received for
the land? 4 Didn’t it belong to you
before it was sold? And after it was sold, wasn’t the money at your disposal?
What made you think of doing such a thing? You have not lied just to human
beings but to God.”
5 When Ananias heard this,
he fell down and died. And great fear seized all who heard what had happened. 6 Then some young men came
forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
7 About three hours later
his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. 8 Peter asked her, “Tell
me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?”
“Yes,” she said, “that is the price.”
9 Peter said to her, “How
could you conspire to test the Spirit of the Lord? Listen! The feet of the men
who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
10 At that moment she fell
down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead,
carried her out and buried her beside her husband. 11 Great fear seized the
whole church and all who heard about these events.
This
passage to me is not about how much money this couple gave to the church but
rather about them not being truthful to the church and ultimately trying to
hide their money from the Holy Spirit.
It is apparent that the church was definitely controlled by the Holy
Spirit. With that being said, I think it
is noteworthy that the people were fearful.
The Holy Spirit showed His power and the people knew better than to mess
with Him. How often today do we try to
water down the Power of the Holy Spirit.
We view the Lord as our Friend, someone who loves us no matter what, but we seem to forget that He is the Almighty
God. If I were to have a face to face
encounter with God, all indications in the Bible, lead me to believe that I
would fall on my face before Him, with fear and trembling but while I am here
on earth I tend to express myself more freely. I am glad that Jesus is there to
interpret my prayers because I do not believe they are always pleasing to God,
especially when I feel that I have been let down.
So,
once again, we see that maybe in our society today we are not ready for the
happenings of the early church. We
grumble when we have to have a potluck dinner, again, and we are too tired to have people in our homes, or our
house is a mess and I don’t feel like cleaning.
Why get out in the middle of the week to go to church? I just want to go home and sit on the couch
and watch TV. For that matter, why should
I even go to church on Sunday? I can watch a televised church service, hear God’s
word, and not have to have an offering plate passed to me . . . and the list
goes on and on. What would happen if,
we, like the early church, became devoted to spreading the Gospel at any
cost? What if we pooled all our
belongings together and helped each other out?
What if we truly sought God with all our hearts and the Holy Spirit
indwelt us to the point that we could never lie about anything and had a fear
God within us? Why is it that somewhere
down the line we lost all of this amazing way of supporting one another? Why is it . . . and What if. . .?
Seeking
Him with all my heart,
Sheila
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