Acts 5:1-11
Have you ever had anything like this happen to you before?
At lunch this week I was trying to open a sleeve of saltine crackers fresh out of the box. It was a struggle. First I separated the four corners at the top. Then I tried to peel back the pieces that were glued together by pulling the wrapping below it. That didn’t work.
As it took more time, I became more frustrated. It was me against a stupid wrapper. It didn’t matter that a team of engineers designed the whole thing, I was taking it personally. Certainly, "I must be smart enough to open a package of saltine crackers".
As humans, one of the things that separate us from animals, and for that matter inanimate objects like packaging, is our ability to think rationally. Being rationale can be a great thing, but of course as humans, that ability has been contaminated by sin. We have an amazing ability to rationalize almost any behavior. We all do it, every day.
Ananias and Sapphira did it with disastrous results. We don’t know what inspired them to lie other than "Satan filled your heart". We don’t know what conversation they might have had together or what thoughts went through their minds. Were they being greedy or just poor? Did they desire to look good to the disciples but were so selfish they couldn’t turn over all the money? Maybe their faith wasn’t strong enough to give it all like Barnabas had done.
If we are honest, we can relate to any one of these rationalizations. The ability to rationalize sin is apparent throughout the Bible. Eve had a good argument for Adam to eat the fruit of the garden. Abraham had a good reason for lying about Sarah not being his wife. The people of Israel had good reasons for complaining about being taken to the wilderness only to die. Judas had a good reason for betraying Jesus.
We love to rationalize our behavior. It’s a good thing that I wasn’t around at the time that this happened to Ananaias and Sapphira. Because it could have just as easily been me that was struck dead. The Good News for us though is that someone else already paid that price for our sins. Jesus was the only person to never rationalize sin, and he died so that we might live.
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=acts%205%3A1-11&version=NIV;MSG
http://www.biblegateway.com/audio/mclean/niv/Acts.5.1-Acts.5.11
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