ODJ: always true
June 21, 2011
The property was yours to sell or not sell, as you wished. And after selling it, the money was yours to give away. How could you do a thing like this? You weren’t lying to us but to God! (v.4).
READ: Acts 4:36-5:11
Walking past me with a noticeable lump in his shirt, my son tried to act nonchalant as he hurried through the room. Not realizing how obvious he looked, he dropped his head and pulled out a pair of scissors when I asked him what he was hiding. Because he had taken to “redesigning” things in his room, we had banned him from unsupervised use of scissors. Holding back a smile at his belief in my naiveté, I lovingly disciplined him for his disobedience and deception.
Perhaps Ananias and Sapphira wanted to be viewed well by others (Acts 4:32). Maybe they felt their partial contribution wouldn’t be seen by God. Ultimately, their reasons don’t matter. The lesson of their story is not that God wanted all of their money. He wanted their whole heart (v.4).
Mired in layers of mixed motives, we try to justify our sinful choices with a cover-up of good intentions. Evasive responses or meaningless “right” answers do little to keep God from seeing the truth (Isaiah 29:13-15). We’re only fooling ourselves, for He isn’t fooled.
Generally grounded in self-preservation, deception has been around since the Garden of Eden. Even great men of faith learned the hard way about the consequences of this common temptation. Passing off Sarah as his sister (not his wife), Abraham lived in the land of half-truths for many years (Genesis 20:13). He had been willing to leave behind all that had been familiar to him to follow God’s leading—everything except the power to deceive. It’s interesting that after Abraham was finally willing to deal in truth, God fulfilled His promise to him (Genesis 20:17-21:2).
God longs to give us good gifts, the greatest being intimacy with Him. But they’ll come only when we’re willing to deal in truth. —Regina Franklin
Do you struggle with being honest with yourself or with others? How are your choices to deceive rooted in self-preservation?
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