Acts Chapter 5

This chapter goes from scary/serious to amazing to fear to excitement.  It is quite a roller coaster of emotions and experience.

It starts with Ananias and Sapphira which is quite a serious and somewhat strange situation.  They lied about the amount of money they got for the house, wanting to make themselves appear better to the church.  As Peter said, the money was theirs and they didn't have to give it all, but they shouldn't have lied about it.  Imagine if God always dealt this seriously with us.  I'm afraid that everyone would probably be dead.  God seems to do this at the beginning of a new era when he is moving powerfully, he lets people know the seriousness of sin.  He did this when Moses was leading the Israelites out of Egypt and Korah and his followers rebelled against Moses.  He did this with the sons of Aaron who offered unauthorized fire to God.  He did this with Akin after Joshua led the Israelites into the promised land and God brought a powerful victory over Jericho.  He did this when David was bringing the Ark of the Covenant up into Jerusalem. In each case he dealt quite immediately with sin and put the fear of God into the people.

I think that if such a thing like this happened, we'd have the police in here investigating potential wrongdoing.  Though I have seen God take people's life when they remained in their sin and rebellion.  For most of us we aren't judged so quickly, but it is important for us to remember that sin is serious and it is a life and death issue.

The next section is an amazing reflection of God working powerfully.  It seems that God does have seasons where he is very visibly and actively working, such as this time and in times of revival that we've seen throughout history.  And then there are times when God is still working, he just chooses not to be moving so intensely.  I would say that there is a very strong correlation between the surrender of the persons to God and the power and visibility of God's working.  Clearly we've just seen in the previous chapter how surrendered to God that Peter was, not caring about his life or safety but only focused on obeying God and being a witness to his death and resurrection and proclaiming that Jesus is the Messiah.  We also see that the people are dedicated to prayer and the apostles teaching and a deep fellowship with one another.  I think it is clear that these go together.  So if we want to see and experience God's working in powerful ways, we need to surrender our lives completely to Christ Jesus, faithfully witnessing to who he is, and dedicate ourselves to prayer and the apostles teaching and fellowship.  It started with them gathering together in prayer and waiting on the Holy Spirit, and I think that is where we should start as well.

Again comes the opposition, but this time God miraculously brings the apostles out of prison.  Again they confront the religious leaders who recognize that the apostles are spreading Jesus' teaching all over and that they are accusing the leaders of killing Jesus (a valid accusation).  But of course as Peter and the apostles again speak this accusation clearly to them, they become enraged and would have probably killed them if not for the intervention of Gamaliel, who somewhat ironically is who Saul/Paul studied under.  I like his statement "You might even be found opposing God."  Clearly this was a wise man, though I think it is unclear if he ever became a believer in Jesus.

They were beaten this time, but that only caused them to rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for the name of Jesus.  Lord, increase our faith!

They continued to preach in the temple - in the religious gathering place of the whole nation - and from house to house.  They preached in the large corporate setting and they preached in smaller house meetings.  

I'd love to see God working in these ways.  Clearly though it takes preparation, dedication and surrender to him and the road isn't easy:  opposition seems to increase proportionally with God's working.

Lord Jesus, please work deeply in our lives!  Prepare us as we choose to dedicate our lives to you and surrender our will to yours.  To you be the glory!