Testing The Limits

Testing the Limits

Sapphira

Read: Acts 5:3-4, 9

I watched my eighteen-month-old granddaughter slowly back up, her eyes glued to her mom’s back. Lacey knew that she wasn’t allowed to sit on or lean against the rough brick hearth that jutted out from my fireplace. She knew that sooner or later, her mom would turn around, tell her no, and pull her away, but that didn’t stop her from trying to get away with it. Suddenly, Holly turned around. Lacey locked eyes with her and started jabbering, as if that would distract her mom from noticing her disobedience.

The woman in today’s passage acted in a similar way. Ananias and Sapphira knew God’s commandment against lying. They understood that he is all-knowing. Yet they still thought that they could get away with lying about the money they had donated to their group of believers. Peter asked Sapphira how she could dare to test the Holy Spirit in such a way. Her desire to appear righteous in the eyes of others had led her to presume on God’s mercy. Was this a habit in her life or an isolated event? In either case, Sapphira never dreamed how seriously God would deal with this testing of his limits.

Sometimes we act like little children in our relationship with God. Although we clearly understand his instructions, we still test the boundaries. We may convince ourselves that we’re following God’s ways, but in some little area that seems so insignificant, we push our toe over the line. When nothing disastrous happens, we step over a little further. It’s easy to fool ourselves by concentrating on God’s love and mercy and ignoring his need to judge sin. Eventually, we reap the consequences of seeing how far we can push him. God wants us to be obedient so that we will be open to his blessing. He doesn’t want us to find out how dangerous presumption can be, as Sapphira did.

Peter said, “How could the two of you even think of conspiring to test the Spirit of the Lord like this?”

Acts 5:9