UNLEASHED INTEGRITY: BE REAL or DIE

^3-4 Peter said, “Ananias, how did Satan get you to lie to the Holy Spirit and secretly keep back part of the price of the field? Before you sold it, it was all yours, and after you sold it, the money was yours to do with as you wished. So what got into you to pull a trick like this? You didn’t lie to men but to God.”

^5-6 Ananias, when he heard those words, fell down dead. That put the fear of God into everyone who heard of it. The younger men went right to work and wrapped him up, then carried him out and buried him.
 
^7-8 Not more than three hours later, his wife, knowing nothing of what had happened, came in. Peter said, “Tell me, were you given this price for your field?”
“Yes,” she said, “that price.”

^9-10 Peter responded, “What’s going on here that you connived to conspire against the Spirit of the Master? The men who buried your husband are at the door, and you’re next.” No sooner were the words out of his mouth than she also fell down, dead. When the young men returned they found her body. They carried her out and buried her beside her husband.

¹¹ By this time the whole church and, in fact, everyone who heard of these things had a healthy respect for God. They knew God was not to be trifled with.  MSG ACTS  5:3-11

So we conclude this week with looking at the FACT God's desire and design for His Church would be that they would be honest, people of integrity!  Why?  Because that's the way He is, and if we are to reflect Him, then we need to be like him as much as we humanly can.    Ananias and Saphira were the walking dead...because they had conspired together to lie.  We've all lied before, and some of us still actively do....while the rest of the world is moving on you can't.   You know that there is something that you need to get out.....and Satan counsels you to continue to hide. 

This is what rips marriages, work relationships, churches, communities apart!  It (the lie, the dishonesty) begins in the heart, exits the mouth, and before long like a fire, it catches because guilt recruits....it needs other dry wooded individuals to be consumed by the lie that the grass is greener, or this person is that, or you "deserve" better or whatever.   This isn't the heart of Christ, or of a TRUE CHRIST follower.  A true Christ follower, a bride of Christ is content with themselves and their situation....trusting it all to Him.   They don't fee the need to lie or protect themselves....because they live in His forgiveness and reality that He loves them just as they are, and they are free to live honestly.



So what about you?  We've all seen people and what happens when friends or family members that live a lie...how it kills them.  How closet drug & alcohol abuse kills in so many ways.  How infidelity kills a family.   These new believers had a new found respect for GOD......do you live with that same respect or are you too, living a lie that's literally killing you and possibly others.  I digress....BE REAL or DIE!  LGLP