Lying to GOD – Getting What We Don’t Deserve

Judgement against Ananias and Sapphira for their deception regarding the sale of their property came swiftly. (Acts 5). Both dropped dead at the apostle Peter’s feet.

The story also recounts the reaction to this clear demonstration of GOD and the Holy Spirit’s power. People reacted as one would expect – with great fear! “Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard of these things.” Acts 5:5, 10-11.

However, the actions of the believing church that followed were not what you would expect from people in fear. We don’t read of believers running away from the church, leaving town and giving up the ministry. Instead we see the church continuing in the mission and the power of GOD doing great work through them.

They’re preaching the gospel and performing miracles and, as a result, more people are believing and joining the church – “more and more men and women believed in the Lord and were added to their number.” Acts 5:12-16

What sort of fear produces such a reaction?

The disciples’ “great fear” was not born of anxiety or worry for their own personal safety. They weren't thinking about danger to themselves. Instead their fear incited a greater reverence and awe in them toward GOD. (Hebrews 12:28-29.)

This type of fear will motivate GOD’s chosen people to joyfully surrender all to GOD and His Holy Spirit.

The believers were newly filled with the Holy Spirit (Acts 2), so they were awestruck that this same power now lived in them. This awareness, increased greatly their honor and respect for the power that was now enabling them to do greater works.

Biblical scholar Matthew Henry’s Commentary on the Bible says the believers’ fear was “not a damp or check to their holy joy, but it taught them to be serious in it, and to rejoice with trembling.”

Two thousand plus years later people still lie, cheat and in other ways break GOD’s law, even believers.

Why does GOD not strike you dead now when you sin against Him and His Holy Spirit?

We actually do suffer a form of death when we break GOD’s law in any way.

For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live. Romans 8:13

Our “death” is not a loss of our physical life but a loss of spiritual well-being.

Sin separates us from GOD. For GOD’s children separation from the Father is a brokenness of life. The broken relationship interrupts our spiritual growth.

A believer’s sin is a heavy burden that inhibits intimacy with the Father. We can try to live in both the spirit and the carnal world, but Romans 8:13 shows us we can’t. We cease to feel joy. We become bitter, unhappy complainers, and dissatisfied with life.

However, separation from our Father doesn’t have to be a permanent state for the believer. GOD Himself makes restoration between Him and His children an easy fix. He tells us how in His WORD:

If we confess our sins, He (GOD) is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say, “We don’t have any sin,” we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us. 1 John 1:9-10

We don’t make things worse for ourselves by pretending that our sin doesn’t exist. We confess, GOD forgives, cleanses us from our righteousness and we are right with Him again.

And we don’t have to keep repeating the sin. With the power of the Holy Spirit that’s in every Christ-follower we can put to death the misdeeds of the body. When we do, new spiritual life with freedom to enjoy the Father again will follow. “You will live.”

So, is there anything to learn from the story of Ananias and Sapphira? 

The instant judgement against Ananias and Sapphira is the only such recorded incident in the New Testament. Under the New Covenant, JESUS’ atoning death and resurrection opened the door to GOD’s grace and mercy for us. 

So, why was it different for Ananias and Sapphira?

Only GOD knows.

GOD’s Spirit can assess the deepest matters of the heart but He reveals to us only what He wants to.  He is the Creator of all and it is His right to do with all as He pleases.

The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law. Deuteronomy 29:29.

We take what lessons are revealed and leave the rest to GOD’s Sovereignty and His perfect knowledge.

The take-away for us from Acts 5:1-11 is that to have great fear of GOD’s power with honor and respect for His Spirit makes us truly alive. A reverent awe towards GOD and all things pertaining to GOD enables believers to do the good works that GOD designed for each of us with a pure heart and with joy. (Ephesians 2:10,)

Conclusion

Because GOD keeps His promises, His Spirit-filled, blood-bought children will never know His wrath.

CHRIST JESUS, took GOD’s wrath upon Himself on our behalf so that we can know His grace, should we choose to accept it.

GOD is faithful today to His New Covenant people in CHRIST. He gives us what we don’t deserve when we sin against Him.

GOD gives us mercy.

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Our Father in Heaven, we stand in awe of YOU! We praise YOUR Holy Name! We thank you that YOU are longsuffering, that YOU do not treat us as we deserve and for YOUR kindness that leads us to repentance. Thank YOU, LORD that YOU show compassion to those who fear YOU, so our spiritual lives are thriving and we can know the joy of YOUR presence. Thank YOU for the Holy Spirit that lives in us and JESUS, our Savior and Redeemer, our LORD. YOURS, Father, is the glory, and the power for ever and ever. We pray and ask all things in JESUS’ name. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile

Happy Thanksgiving!

Here’s a thought to ponder as you celebrate the Thanksgiving Day Holiday with friends and loved-ones.

“It’s one thing to be grateful. It’s another to give thanks.

Gratitude is what you feel.

Thanksgiving is what you do.”

Pastor Timothy Keller, New York City, NY.

How are you doing with thanksgiving to people who make your life more meaningful every day? 

And more important, how often do you offer thanksgiving to your Heavenly Father?

Fact! We can never repay GOD for all that He has done for us. His goodness, love, mercy and amazing grace in giving His one and only Son to die for us always will be beyond our ability to repay.

What we can do is daily and exuberantly open our lips and praise GOD’s Name.  

There’s a song that says, “If I had 10,000 tongues, it just wouldn’t be enough to say thank you!” (Richard Smallwood) – and it wouldn’t.

We owe our daily existence to the One who created us. It’s His breath in our lungs. Surely, we can give back a bit of it to Him in praise, and we can tell others how good He’s been to us.

We can take time to say:

Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory, for the sake of your steadfast love and your faithfulness. Psalm 115:1

O give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever! Psalm 118:1

Not just one day a year, but every day of the year.

Almighty GOD deserves no less!

I bless GOD every chance I get; my lungs expand with His praise.  Psalm 34:1 (MESSAGE BIBLE)

Praise and Thanksgiving:  We exalt you, our GOD, forever we will praise your name! YOU are gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in mercy. YOU are good, YOUR promises are trustworthy and YOU are faithful in all YOU do. YOU hear us when we cry out in trouble and YOU lift us up when we are down. YOU are the GOD who is always near; We thank YOU for YOUR lovingkindness that is better than life and JESUS CHRIST who saved us. To YOUR NAME be all glory, all honor and all praise, forever and ever. Amen!

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile

Lying to GOD – Getting What We Deserve

You are always and forever in GOD's presence.

Not only does GOD see your actions, He watches your thoughts. You are wholly known by an omniscient GOD (Psalm 139:2-3). He knows all that there is to know and all that can be known – about everyone and everything.

GOD’s knowledge is total.

Christians should know this about GOD because the Scriptures tell us so.

In both the Old and New Testaments, we learn that our thoughts and our motives are all visible to GOD – that GOD’s knowledge and understanding of the entire universe are infinite.  1 Chronicles 28:9; Job 34:21; Proverbs 15:3; Hebrews 4:13.

You have no secrets from GOD. Yet, believers are often deceitful with GOD, as if He is just like one of us. 

We behave towards GOD as if He were a naïve grandfather who is so blinded by love for his grandchildren that he can't imagine they could do wrong. So, he lets them get away with mischief and buys them whatever they want, whenever they ask. 

This is not GOD!

Not only does GOD know about our lies and pretenses but He holds us accountable. GOD judges us for all our deeds, good and evil.

“I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward each person according to their conduct, according to what their deeds deserve.” Jeremiah 17:10

all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:13b

What price, lying to GOD – Ananias and Sapphira?

A lying tongue is among the seven things the Bible says that GOD detests (Proverbs 6:16-19.) If GOD hates lying, it’s a sin.

Lying to the people in our lives is a sin against GOD; one that is especially grievous when we lie to, or about, the body of CHRIST. 

GOD judges us for the sin of lying.

What might GOD’s judgement for lying look like?

The following story from Acts 5 demonstrates:

A man named Ananias, with the consent of his wife Sapphira, sold a piece of property; with his wife’s knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds, and brought only a part and laid it at the apostles’ feet. “Ananias,” Peter asked, “why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back part of the proceeds of the land? While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, were not the proceeds at your disposal? How is it that you have contrived this deed in your heart? You did not lie to us but to God!”  (Verses 1-4)

Keeping back a portion of the proceeds they received from the sale of their property wasn’t Ananias and Sapphira’s sin. They had a right to do this, since the property belonged to them. Their wrongdoing was deception. They pretended to be generous and sincere but were exposed as cheats, liars and hypocrites.

Ananias and his wife outwardly imitated the actions of the believers (see Acts 4:32-37) while in their hearts they were the total opposite.

The believers were earnest heard-working men and women whose goal was to dedicate themselves and all that they owned to the work of spreading the gospel of JESUS CHRIST, regardless of the cost.

These were people “….of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common.” (Acts 4:32-37.)

Some of the believers were very poor. To share all possessions equally ensured that no one lacked for any personal or ministry need, so each could do what was necessary to fulfill JESUS’ great commission of taking the gospel message to the world.

They cared as deeply about the work as they did for each other, according to the teachings of CHRIST, (John 15:12; Mark 12:30-31) – an essential part of their belief and a sacred principle.  No sacrifice was too great.

On the other hand, the couple in this story acted out of selfish motives.

GOD exposed their hearts to the leaders who pronounced GOD’s equal judgement upon each of them, Acts 5:5, 7-10:

Now when Ananias heard these words, he fell down and died…. After an interval of about three hours his wife came in, not knowing what had happened. Peter said to her, “Tell me whether you and your husband sold the land for such and such a price.” And she said, “Yes, that was the price.” Then Peter said to her, “How is it that you have agreed together to put the Spirit of the Lord to the test? Look, the feet of those who have buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out.” Immediately she fell down at his feet and died.

By agreement, Ananias and Sapphira deceived their friends, and attempted to deceive their GOD. 

They made a public show of being of one heart and soul with the believers when they had only their own interests at heart. 

For their sacrilegious act of putting the Spirit of the Lord to the test, both the man and his wife suffered the same fate. Both died.

Ananias and Sapphira coveted the believers’ good reputation but were unwilling to pay the cost. They loved their comfort more than they loved GOD. They loved themselves more than they loved the people of GOD. For selfish gain, they acted on a lie.

In this story, GOD’s judgement for lying was swift and final – death without the opportunity for repentance and eternal separation from the Father.

Believers are still lying to GOD, 2,000 plus years after this event took place. 

So, why did GOD take the lives of Ananias and Sapphira but our lives aren’t taken even as we continue to try to deceive the Father?

Do not be deceived; God is not mocked, for you reap whatever you sow. Galatians 6:7

….to be continued

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Our Father in Heaven, we praise YOU, our GOD and our LORD! We are grateful for your Holy Presence in our lives. We thank YOU for loving us even though YOU know our thoughts and our hearts intimately and we thank YOU for not judging us with the harshness we deserve. We ask that YOU forgive us our trespasses and cleanse us from our sin. YOURS is the glory, and the power for ever and ever. We pray and ask all things in the name of JESUS. Amen.

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile

When Free Will Hurts Us

It’s a waking nightmare!

I’ve now lost count of the numbers of senseless acts of gun violence that’s happened to us this year, 2018.

It’s happened again – one dozen lives taken, plus the shooter, a total of 13, and for no reason.  

And again, people, non-Christians especially, are asking that age-old question.

Where is GOD? Why does He allow such atrocities to happen? How can GOD be good and not protect the innocent?

Places of worship and employment, schools, shopping malls and hospitals, young children and the elderly – nowhere and no one is safe.

Good, Christian people can be counted among the victims. People who love JESUS, serve faithfully, give generously to aid the suffering, pray for others and do all that they know to live the way believers should.

So why has this suffering come to us?

WHERE IS GOD?

Why does GOD not intervene when humans are about to make disastrous choices?

GOD created the human race in His image, including the ability to make choices. He gave us free will.

As we have ability to choose, we also have a responsibility to choose wisely.

The world is in its current sinful state due to the choices made by our first parents, Adam and Eve.

GOD’s righteous judgement against them for breaking His law was spiritual death and a life full of sorrow and hardship (see Genesis 3.)

All of mankind inherited the same judgement because of the fall of Eden of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden.

However, at the same time He pronounced His judgement, GOD offered unlimited grace and opened the door to our eventual restoration and reconciliation back to Him. He promised that a “Seed, or Offspring” of Eve’s would come and crush the author of our sin, Satan.

“I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise His heel” Genesis 3:15.

This is the first promise of the Messiah, JESUS CHRIST, the very first great act of GOD’s grace after our tragic act of rebellion.

From this point on, Scripture keeps repeating there’s but one way we could choose what is good while we’re in our current sinful state.

How can mankind in our sin nature use free will to choose what is good?

Believe that CHRIST is our Savior and accept Him into our lives as such. 

We give up our old nature inherited from our first parents and take on the new nature of a child of GOD:

But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13

This life-altering decision is our access to the power of the Holy Spirit and our true rebirth. The Holy Spirit works in and through our will to make us a new creation – to be like GOD Himself, having true righteousness and holiness.

You were taught to put away your former way of life, your old self, corrupt and deluded by its lusts, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to clothe yourselves with the new self, created according to the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4:22-24

All people belong to GOD (Psalm 24:1) but only believers in CHRIST have the right to be His children (John 1:12.)

All people have free will to act out their motives and desires and all are held to account for their choices.

However, we who belong to GOD and have the Spirit of GOD living in us are less likely to make choices that bring chaos and pain on themselves and others.

“You are not in the flesh; you are in the Spirit, since the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him. But if Christ is in you, though the body is dead because of sin, the Spirit is life because of righteousness.” Romans 8:9-10

We will never completely understand how, and may not even want to believe it in times like these, but the answer to “where is GOD” is this:

GOD is still with us, still Almighty, still loving and kind and faithful, still great and wonderful. GOD still grieves with us and will never nor forsake us. GOD still cares for us; He is not far removed from our pain and our loss.

GOD hasn’t changed. He still allows us our free will – the freedom to choose.

Conclusion

For those whose loved ones are suddenly and tragically taken, no answer as to “why” is good enough to lessen their immediate suffering.

A mother whose son was a victim of the most recent gun tragedy cried out in her anguish that she wants to no “prayers and good thoughts” coming to her; she wants only gun control. My heart bleeds for her obvious torment.

But, while I too hate guns and the pain that this instrument of death has been causing the entire Nation in recent times, I know that we need something more than gun control.

We need people to have changed hearts.

With or without easy access to guns, the human heart that hasn't undergone regeneration by the Holy Spirit remains evil and wicked and can make only like choices. (Genesis 6:5; Matthew 15:19)

Over and over, the New Testament Scriptures calls for sinners to “repent” and “believe”: (Matthew 3:2; 4:17; Acts 3:19).

Every call to repent is a call to use our free will to choose good over evil. It’s a call that GOD promises to answer, every time.

GOD alone is our salvation.

Prayer and Thanksgiving: Holy Father, YOU are the only wise GOD. We thank You for unlimited grace through CHRIST JESUS our Messiah, LORD and Savior. You are the GOD of all comfort, extend comfort to all who have been touched by the evil of gun violence. We ask that You give our leaders wisdom for an end to this criminal activity, and that You give our Nation peace, Your peace that is beyond understanding.  Open minds to the truth that true freedom is buried in CHRIST JESUS. Remind believers that our worldly suffering is small compared to the glory that awaits us in eternity with YOU. Father, we admit that these are hard truths to live out so we ask for Your strength daily so we don’t lose faith and give in to fear. All glory, all honor, and all praise be to YOUR NAME. All things in JESUS name.  Amen!

Always by God’s Word and prayer,

Cecile