Reading your Bible for today February 10

February 10: Acts 5:1-5

KJV Key Verse: Acts 5:3
3 But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?

Devotion:
This is one of those stories in our bible we probably don’t like to remember or to go back to because it shows a side of God we don’t like to know about. When we talk about God being just, we like to think 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 also just toward us and will carry out judgement if it is us who break the law! I thank Jesus Christ He is my Saviour and 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 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 this possession they had and they did it before God. We may turn around and say we have not been so stupid as to do something like this before God, but in reality, we have because we have been hypocrites and in doing so we have done similar things 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 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 who we are doing this all in front of. Each one of us has to remember 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?