Tuesday Reading: Acts 5:1-5
Key Verse: Acts 5:3
3 But Peter said, Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart for you to lie to the Holy Spirit, and to keep back part of the price of the land?
Devotion:
I’m sure that we have all heard this account of Ananias and Sapphira at some stage before but it is not one that we like to remember because it shows a side of God that we don’t like to know about. When we talk about God being just, we like to think that He is our protector and guide and will keep us from the evil around us; we like to think of Him as the one who will judge those around us who do evil things against us. What we do not like to think about is that He is a just God and will carry out judgement even if it is us that break the law! I thank Jesus Christ that He is my Saviour and that I am looked after by Him and that He promised to take away all my sins that I lay down before Him; without that promise I would have been taken out a long time ago!
We don’t like to admit to being hypocrites, but that is something that we have all been guilty of at some stage in our lives – we say one thing and do another. Ananias and Sapphira took it upon themselves to withhold a portion of the price of that possession they had and they did it before God. We may turn round and say that we have not been so stupid as to do something like that before God but in reality we have because we have been hypocrites and in doing so we have done that in front of God! Christ reminded us that when we do things against our fellow men we do it against God because we have been made in His image and He indwells us...
There is no way that we can serve both God and man. We either serve one or the other because they are like two sides of a coin. Man is corrupt by default... we know that because we too are corrupt to start with. We only need to switch on the news for a few minutes to realise just how far corruption goes within our society because we see it right through governments around the world. Each one of us has to remember just who we are doing this all in front of. Each one of us has to remember that we are guilty and we are doing this in front of Christ our King. Don’t be like Ananias and Sapphira... don’t try and hide something after God has already seen it!
Points to Ponder:
Do you always do what you say?
Just how much do you admit to God?
