Acts 5:8
8Peter asked her, "Tell me, is this the price you and Ananias got for the land?"
"Yes," she said, "that is the price."
When this story is read so many people hear that money was held back, and that was the sin. While that was the action that started it off, it was not the action that led to their demise. It was the lie that stopped that stopped their hearts. It is the same situation that we find ourselves in time and time again. How often do we say well, I am not lying……I just did not tell the whole truth……that is what happened to Ananias and Sapphira…they did not lie…….they just told a modified version of the truth………a lie, just by another name. In all aspects of our life there is only one way to give, totally. We give all we have. Why? Because that is what Christ gave each one of us. When we offer anything to the Lord, the only thing worthy to give is 100%. By giving less than what they had, then lying about it Ananias, and Sapphira said here God this is what you are worth to me…..less than everything I have. They were saying “hey, I am going to talk about being a Christian, I am going to talk about giving everything I have, but when it comes to doing it….well what you don’t know won’t hurt you” This is the attitude that many of us go through life with. We lie to ourselves, and we lie to the Lord by saying “Lord, I want everything that you have to give, all of the hope, all of the love, all of the forgiveness, but I am only going to give what I see fit back to you”. We treat people in our lives the same way, we want it all from them, but hold back when it is our time to give….all the while telling them this is all that I have to give. I cannot stress this enough, this life is not the prize, the finish line is not found in the grave. Think of it like this. We start off our life with a bag full of goodness. It is brimming with all types of blessings form the Lord, as we live our life, we hand out what we have in our bag. You find along the way that the more you give, the more the Lord puts back in the bag. If you are thinking that you need to get a bigger bag you are missing the point…... You don’t monitor the bag to make sure you still have something left, you just keep reaching in and giving all that you have. It is my hope and prayer that we can all find a way to give enough so that the day we stand before the Lord, there is not one thing left in our bag. I want to be able to hold it upside down and shake it, and tell the Lord, I have given all that I had Lord, because you were all that I ever needed.
God Bless,
Brian Thetford
The New
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