Love.Listen.Live.

The multitude of believers was one in heart and soul. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they owned. With great power the apostles continued to give their testimony about the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And abundant grace was upon them all.
There were no needy ones among them, because those who owned lands or houses would sell their property, bring the proceeds from the sales, and lay them at the apostles’ feet for distribution to anyone as he had need.
Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (meaning Son of Encouragement), sold a field he owned, brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet. Acts 4:32-37

Love.

    At the end of Acts 3 we find the church, alive, thriving, growing and reproducing.  It is in absolute unity.  They are one in heart and soul.  They are listening and actively obeying the Apostles’ teachings on the Word of God.  They are in koine  with one another, sharing generously all that they have because they are in common equality with one another in the gospel. Because of Jesus’ ultimate sacrifice to bring fallen humanity back into a loving relationship with their Creator God, the Church had become a return to the paradise of God, the Garden of Eden—the Garden of Delights.  It is what God has made us for—an equality and love with one another that shares and gives out of love.  Everything in this Garden is for the common good of all.  Their attitude toward one another is “how can we ensure that each of us is thriving and rejoicing in God’s goodness?” 
     The Church was a new creation.  It was a new beginning, where the old, dead, stony heart of people was replaced with a living heart: one that wanted to love and please God; one that was willing even to lay down one’s own life for one another. 
     While the one command in the Garden to humanity was “do not eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil,” God knew that the very reason we chose to disobey that command was a lack of love for God.  As a result, God gave a new command, the greatest command of all.  It was one that would give us a reason to choose to walk in obedience: love for God. 
     This command the Israelites were to recite every morning and evening.  It was to be their first thought before starting their day and their last upon ending it:
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Listen, O Israel: The Lord our God [plural\, the Lord is One. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your physicality [nephesh\ and with all your everything [me'od\. 
​Deuteronomy 6:4-5

     Because God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit are One, we are to be one in our unity and love.  The Church was now obeying God’s command to love Him and love their neighbor with all their heart, all their soul and all their strength, unified in its focus.  When we love, we automatically choose to do things that are in line with God’s laws and commands because genuine love comes from God and aligns with His purposes for His people.  Like God, we naturally start to choose what would be good and best for others, even at our own cost.
     God wants our whole, entire selves—our hearts, everything that we feel and make decisions on; our nephesh (often translated souls, it more accurately is our physical body), every part of our physical humanity, desires and appetites; and our me’od, our ability in every circumstance to be wholly and completely given back to God in complete love and trust for our Creator. 
     While we find ourselves drawn to stay in this delightful fellowship of the Church, into this perfect Garden we see the plot begin to thicken: 
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Now a man named Ananias, together with his wife Sapphira, also sold a piece of property. With his wife’s full knowledge, he kept back some of the proceeds for himself, but brought a portion and laid it at the apostles’ feet.
Then Peter said, “Ananias, how is it that Satan has filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit and withhold some of the proceeds from the land? Did it not belong to you before it was sold? And after it was sold, was it not at your disposal? How could you conceive such a deed in your heart? You have not lied to men, but to God!”
On hearing these words, Ananias fell down and died. And great fear came over all who heard what had happened. Then the young men stepped forward, wrapped up his body, and carried him out and buried him.
Acts 5:1-5

Listen.

     Cue the villain.  
     Into this Garden, this New Creation, this paradise of love and goodwill and kindness, we find evil creeping in. 
   The Serpent is back. 
    The very Hebrew letters used to spell out the serpent’s name, nachash נָּחָ֑שׁ, describe the kind of adversary we face continuously: 

נָּ nun: life/son/heir/seed
חָ֑ chet: divide/cut/separate
שׁ shin: teeth/two/devour/consume
"One who devours an heir in order to divide and cut off life"

his name, satan שָּׂטָ֛ן, is similar in meaning: 

שָּׂ shin: teeth/two/devour/consume
טָ֛ tet: basket/surround/ensnare
ן nun: life/son/heir/seed
"One who surrounds life in order to ensnare and devour it."

     The serpent's plan not a new scheme; it’s a very ancient one.  In fact, he must have thought, ‘it worked last time!’  

    In fact, that ancient serpent has been waiting to devour life from the beginning and continues even now.  But he will never win!
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...And the dragon stood before the woman who was about to give birth, so that when she bore her child he might devour it. She gave birth to a male child, one who is to rule all the nations with a rod of iron, but her child was caught up to God and to his throne,...Now war arose in heaven, Michael and his angels fighting against the dragon. And the dragon and his angels fought back, but he was defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. And the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him. And I heard a loud voice in heaven, saying, “Now the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come, for the accuser of our brothers has been thrown down, who accuses them day and night before our God. And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Rev. 12:4-11

     Listening, as the Greatest Command says, involves more than just allowing the sound or voice or someone to enter our ears.  It encompasses hearing, understanding, and taking action that follows through with the intent of the speaker.
     The Bible tells us that we become slaves or servants to the one we listen to and obey:
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​Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient servants, you are servants of the one you obey—whether you are servants to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?
​Rom. 6:16

​     The serpent roams around seeking to find people to listen to his voice, to become his slaves, so that he can accuse us before God.  In Acts 5, Ananias wasn’t listening to God’s command to love.  His motivations for participating in the selling of his property, inaccurate donation and lies were all rooted in a desire to gain something for himself rather than serving the crucial needs of those around him. Just as Eve listened to the voice of the serpent and saw that the fruit was “good for success,” he wasn’t just withholding some of the value of the land.  He was withholding himself from His Creator.  What he was bringing to God was representing the value that he placed upon God and his relationship to Him.  His giving was only as a show to everyone else.  Barnabas had given out of the gratitude and love of his heart; Ananias was giving in order to get something out of them all.  It wasn’t a gift of love. 
     While neither Ananias nor we have an obligation to sell all our property and give it all away, when we see people in need our Spirit-filled response should be a desire to ask the Lord how we can give out of the great abundance that He has entrusted to us.  God wants our whole selves, nothing withheld.  He wants us to listen and respond to Him in this love by giving Him our whole selves in every moment, obeying every Word that He speaks to us.  This will often “cost” us, sometimes a great amount.  But it is never even close to the incredibly abundant grace that He has given us.
     In the Garden, the serpent came and deceived the woman, telling her that she would not die.  When she decided to eat the fruit, her body, her nephesh, did not die immediately.  Her spirit, however, did.  When Adam agreed with her to eat, his spirit also passed from life into death. Into their bodies, their nephesh, however, death entered as a slow and inevitable process.
     After they sinned, when they heard God’s voice in the Garden, they were no longer in loving fellowship with God.  As a result, they were afraid and hid from His faces (panim). 
    In Hebrew, the word for “hide” is chabah חָבָא. 

חָ chet: divide/cut off/wall off
בָ beit: house/household/family
א aleph: ox/strong leader/God the Father/first

    In choosing to hide from God and wrapping themselves in fig leaves, trying vainly to cover up their own shame and sin, they were effectively causing themselves to be cut off and divided from the household of their loving, heavenly Father.  This was exactly what the serpent had intended: to ensnare and to cut off life and the heirs from the inheritance of the Father. 
    However, at the voice of God, Adam and Eve together made a decision to come out of hiding.  They presented themselves before God the Father and confessed to Him what they had done.  The Word in Hebrew, “confess,” (todah יָדָה) means to cast or throw down something, to be lifted up to enter through the door and behold. It is an accurate accounting, a numbering of our sins according to how we have transgressed the loving commands of God. Conversely, the word also means to give thanks or praise.  In essence, when we confess our sins to our Father, we are doing it in gratitude that He has provided forgiveness and justification through the Door, His Son, Jesus.  We are casting away our sins, the ones that ensnare and enslave us, and throwing our thanks at His feet in humble gratitude as we are brought back into the household as a family member.
​    In response to Adam and Eve's confession, in His grace God provided a covering for their clothing.  A blood sacrifice was made so that humanity could be covered, symbolically representing the sacrifice of Jesus’ blood that would be given to cover over our sins for all eternity. 

     Sadly, Ananias did not have a heart that would receive this grace. 
    Ananias.  His name means, “Grace of God.”  It is what God intended and willed for him, but not something he chose to receive for himself.    
     The Apostle Paul makes it clear in Romans how we should not take God’s grace lightly, as if it is not costly.  It is precious and extremely valuable.  It is the blood of our Savior given for the world.  When we continue to live a lifestyle of practicing sin without listening and obeying God, we trample the grace of God under our feet:
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Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?  Certainly not!
Romans 6:1 
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Or do you show contempt for the riches of God’s kind grace, forbearance and mercy, not realizing that it is his kind grace that leads to repentance?
 Romans 2:4 

​     This kind of contempt for God’s grace is the kind of evil that comes when people want the free blessings of God but are only using the Church as a way to gain for themselves selfishlessly.  They think that God will not see, but He certainly does.  Just as He saw Adam in the Garden, hiding, He also sees the true heart motivations of all of us.  None of us can hide from the eye of His faces.   
     Ananias’ response to the extreme grace and kindness of God was to despise it, to withhold from God His very self, and to lie instead of to confess and thank God for His grace.  As a result, he stayed hidden, separated and cut off from the family of God.  

About three hours later his wife also came in, unaware of what had happened. “Tell me,” said Peter, “is this the price you and your husband got for the land?”
“Yes,” she answered, “that is the price.”
“How could you agree to test the Spirit of the Lord?” Peter replied. “Look, the feet of the men who buried your husband are at the door, and they will carry you out also.”
At that instant she fell down at his feet and died. Then the young men came in and, finding her dead, carried her out and buried her beside her husband.
Acts 5:7-10
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​     Sapphira. In Hebrew, her name means “scribe,” or “accountant.”  A saphar סָפֵר was one who would render an accurate accounting of the saphan סָפַן: the treasures that had been covered and hidden. The scribes were entrusted with the task of ensuring that the hidden, covered treasures in the storeroom or the message of the word of the king would be accurately relayed to the people. 
     In this part of the passage, the word “price” or “valuation” comes up repeatedly.  The word is Tinos, and it means value, weight or honor.  Agreeing with her husband, Sapphira purposely and inaccurately rendered an account of the value or the land.  God also had given her a part, one who would accurately call to account the treasures He had entrusted to them for the benefit of His people.  She, in her own turn, would choose to willfully turn away from listening and obeying God’s voice because she also lacked love for God and others. 
     In the advent of the Church, the spiritual rebirth and resurrection of God’s people, the deaths of both Ananias and Sapphira would represent physically the spiritual death that was already inherent inside of them.  Their outward death only mirrored their inward death. 
    Ananias and Sapphira’s deaths were merely a physical representation of their spiritual, inward reality.  They were already dead in their spirits.  They had chosen to listen to the voice of the Serpent.  It wasn’t about who messed up first, it wasn’t about whose idea it was.  It was that they both agreed to be unified in their disobedience to God. 
            In addition, God wanted to be very clear about our individual responsibility to listen and obey His voice.  In the Garden, God reprimanded Adam because he “listened to the voice of [his] wife” instead of to God’s voice.  To some, the curse and the fall feels like it lands unfairly on humanity because of the woman’s choice.  God is setting the record straight:  this time it the choice is first the husbands, followed by his wife’s agreement. 
            Both of them, however, in each case, are listening to the voice of the Serpent. It goes both ways.  The point of this reversal is that at the heart of it all they are listening and obeying the voice of the serpent.
 
Woman
         Man
            Serpent
         Man
Woman
 
    They both alike despised the grace of God and refused to render a just account, a correct confession of their wrong before God. In turn, God could no longer listen to them: 

Behold, the LORD'S hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; neither His ear heavy, that it cannot hear: But your iniquities have separated between you and your God [plural\ and your sins have hidden His faces from you, that He will not hear. Isaiah 59:2
  

     Rather than coming out of hiding in truth before God, they remained hidden by their own sins, remaining disconnected and divided from the family of God.
     Feet. Another word that keeps coming up in this passage is feet.  It the beautiful feet who are bringing the good news of the resurrection of Jesus.  It is at the feet of the apostles that the Church is laying down their rights to their physical possessions.  Conversely, it is at Peters’ feet that Ananias and Sapphira fall and die, and it is the feet of the young men, no longer bringing good news, that are standing at the door to take her away to her burial. 
    There is another who stands at the door, the door to our heart, the seat of our affections and love.  He pleads to us to listen to His voice and live:
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Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone listens to my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. The one who conquers, I will grant him to sit with me on my throne, as I also conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. He who has an ear, let him listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.’”
Rev. 3:20-22
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     While this is a sad story, it is also crucial to understand that this time the serpent loses.  This time, the life of the Church remains uncorrupted.  The true Church remains in completely unity and fellowship with their Creator.  This time, the evil cannot destroy and ensnare the life of the Church—yes, perhaps some were choosing to listen to the voice of the serpent, but the Church, the living Church of God, cannot be overcome.  Instead, glory is given to God.  Instead, we conquer in Jesus’ name.  Instead, there is complete oneness and unity as The Son sits on the throne of the Father and we sit with Him on the same throne.  It’s about fellowship, oneness, and love. 

 And great fear came over the whole church and all who heard about these events.
The apostles performed many signs and wonders among the people, and with one accord the believers gathered together in Solomon’s Colonnade. Although the people regarded them highly, no one else dared to join them. Yet more and more believers were brought to the Lord—large numbers of both men and women.
Acts 5:11-14

Live.

     Fear.  The Hebrew letters give us a better understanding “yarah יִרְאָה .”
יִ yod: mighty work/hand stretched out
רְ resh: head/ruler/source/Prince 
אָ aleph: strong leader/God the Father
ה hey: behold/worship/revelation 

     The first letter is “yod,” which is a hand outstretched to do a mighty work or deed; the second is resh, which looks like a head and signifies one who is a prince or ruler, originator; the third is aleph, which refers back to the Father as our strong leader; and the fourth is hey, which looks like the figure of a person with arms and hands upraised to behold and worship, revealing something to be in awe of. 
     In English, we often think of fear as negative.  Its synonyms are to be terrified, scared, or alarmed. However, Hebrew word describes more the feeling that we get when we behold the mighty deeds of the Prince (Jesus) who has come from the Father.  When we are in fellowship with God, those feelings are awe, amazement, comfort, peace, excitement and relief, worship.  We are full of wonderful feelings that we have a mighty God who comes to rescue us from our enemies. 
     On the other hand, when we are in disobedience to God, when we are using our words, actions and provisions to hurt and abuse others, the mightiness of God becomes a terror to us.  Our feelings can be very negative as we realize that the Judge of all the earth sees and knows everything we do and think and will call us to render an accurate accounting for how we have treated others and how we have treated the grace of His Son.  
   The Church, instead of being overcome by terror and hiding from His presence, the kind of awe and amazement that the mighty work of God in their midst in the judgment of Ananias and Sapphira brought increased growth and a dire warning to those who would, in pretense, seek to join them for evil reasons.  Those who wanted to come out of hiding and take hold of the grace of God for themselves continued to join them and the Church grew mightily.
     For those who chose to be in awe and deep reference and gratitude for God’s mighty works, it created even greater unity.  In a deeper effect, it created a strong purity among the believers.  Though “no one else dared join them,” yet more and more people were truly becoming saved and were being accounted to their numbers. 
    When Adam and Eve came out of hiding, they truthfully confessed to God what they had done.  As a result, they received a promise of an eternal redemption coming in the form of Jesus and a covering for their shame. They were given life for eternity.
      Ananias and Sapphira lied to God.  There was no more redemption. There was no life for their dead spirits. They had abused the abundant grace of God.
     One day we will all give an account, a rendering to God for how we responded to His grace.  Do we receive it with confession and thanksgiving? Do we abuse it, as if we can use it to keep sinning in a lifestyle that says God’s grace is cheap?  Do we give the count the correct value and honor and weight to God’s grace?
     The apostles were preaching the resurrection life in Jesus, both in this hour and in the one to come!  There is no value on earth that can ever come close to the price that Jesus paid for us, to the value of eternal life in Him forever in Paradise!  

"An hour is coming and is now here when the dead will listen to the voice of the Son of God, and those who listen will live!"  John 5:25

     This week, let’s dwell on the sh'ma—to listen to his voice out of a deep love that encompasses our entire selves.  Let’s embrace the life that comes from living in unhindered unity with God through Jesus!