(Reading: Acts 5)
Do you believe God is who he says he is?
Perhaps you have Christian friends always talking about Jesus and you think it’s just a passing fad or there is no truth to it?
Or even worse perhaps you attend church but are just going through the motions?
I wonder if Ananias and Saphire who were part of the early Christian community, yet were they just going through the motions? Did they really understand the truth of what Jesus had done for them on the cross that should have totally impacted every area of their life?
It is no accident that Acts 5 starts of with this rather disturbing story, and follows immediately with the church being out doing stuff and then at the end, the religious leaders don’t like what they see so they try to stop it! Do you see a pattern here? There is a deep comparision with merely going through the motions, lack of fear for the things of God and that of total respect for what God is doing! It also sets the scene for the early church (and us) that you can’t mock God.
Some of the issues:
#1 Your resources are your own to do with as you choose but don’t deceive (v4)
#2 Jealosy causes to dis-respect God and what he is doing (v17)
If God is in it, nothing you can do or say will change what he desires to do in your life, in the life of people around you and in your community!
This whole chapter teaches us to respect what God chooses to do, by his sovereign power and how he leads his people!
v34ff; Gamaliel got it right – people respected him, he recognised if God is in it nothing you do or say will make it go away (v38-39)
In the christian life, I guess, one of the hardest things is to be more concerned with what others think, to listen to the sound of the status quo in our communities rather than doing the things of God and ushering in His Kingdom!
Lord, teach me this day to have a renewed healthy fear and respect for what you are doing, Help me not to listen to the crowd or the authorities when it comes to putting asunder the things of the kingdom in our lives. Father I need more of your Holy Spirit’s power in my life to help me to live without fear of people, to instead step out in faith and do what you ask of me. Let your kingdom come, your will be done – and today in some small way start with me. Amen.
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