An Honest God

10.16.12

Acts 5.3-4 3 But Peter said, “Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and to keep back some of the price of the land? 4 While it remained unsold, did it not remain your own? And after it was sold, was it not under your control? Why is it that you have conceived this deed in your heart? You have not lied to men but to God.” NASB

Apparently there was more to the story: maybe there was a special place for those who sold land and brought the proceeds to the church. Maybe they got their name on a plaque (although I highly doubt it) or some kind of public acknowledgement for their generosity. Something motivated Ananias and his bride to, apparently, sell the land for one price and then announce they had sold it for another. They were unnecessarily dishonest. The other part of the story is that Peter knew what was going on – maybe someone told him what Ananias and Sapphira were up to. Maybe that someone was Someone: God.

The bottom line is this: God asks us to be open and honest with Him. God, who knows everything, including the thoughts and intents of our hearts, asks us to be honest with Him because He desires that we be honest with ourselves. An honest man is a man of character and when he says he sold the land for this price; that, is the price. When he says he is trustworthy and reliable you can always count on him. He proves himself trustworthy. A man who is honest before men will be honest before God.

The last part of the story that is noteworthy is this: And great fear came over the whole church, and over all who heard of these things. (v. 11) Ya think? I’ll bet there was some serious soul-searching going on in the church after Ananias and his wife were carted off to the mortuary. Not all of our sins are visible to others – no one (but God) knows what we do when we’re alone and/or away…

God calls us to honesty because if we are honest before Him, we’ll be honest before men – and it will show. If we are dishonest before God then our dishonesty before men will manifest itself in one way or another. God expects righteousness from us all the time – that’s why He chose to make our hearts His home.

If there is one overriding principle in Scripture it is this: our behavior will either bring us close to, or drive us away from, God. That’s a tough pill to swallow, but it’s true. Who we really are shows up in our behavior and our behavior ultimately displays what we really believe: our choices, our preferences, who we really are. That’s why who we really are is so important. That’s why our relationship with the Lord is so vital and necessary: it defines us.

It is said that Ghandi once sought to become a Christ-follower. He went to a British church one Sunday to hear and to see more but was rejected at the door by a man who told him, “Your kind are not welcome here!” And so, with that it is said, Ghandi closed his heart to Christianity. What he had heard about Christ and what he experienced were two very different things and he went with what he experienced. His mind had been taught that belief in Christ, like the caste system he was so familiar with, were no different…

The Church must be filled with people who are willingly honest before God and eagerly honest before men. Otherwise we’ll be churches full of dishonest people pathetically trying to proclaim the reality of an Honest God.