You Have Lied Not to Men But to God

Readings:
I Chronicles 7
Acts 5:1-10

Focus:
Acts 5:4b:"What made you think of doing this? You have lied not to men but to God."

When I was younger, I misunderstood the story of Ananias and Sapphira. I thought that they were punished because, when they sold their property, they didn't give all their money to the church. Later I realized what their real transgression was, and this made much more sense. It's true that they didn't give all the proceeds of their sale to the church, but that wasn't their offense: their real sin was that they said that they were giving all of the earnings to the church. They were trying to look good while still keeping a lot of the profits for themselves.

Did Ananias and Sapphira truly believe that God was real? Sometimes I wonder about people who do things like they did. Maybe they got caught up in the early Christian movement and found it exciting, and wanted to be important. And one way they could look really good was to be one of the biggest givers. Only they didn't really want to give all their money away, so they just pretended that they gave it all. If they didn't truly--not down deep in their hearts--believe that there was a God who cared, it wouldn't matter.

But the thing is that there really is a God who knows exactly what we say and think and do. And his opinion matters more than the opinions of any of the people in our lives. When people lie, they are lying not to people but to God. And who really wants to lie to the God of the universe?