| At that moment 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.
Great fear seized the whole church and all who heard about these events. (Acts 5:10-11)
The story of Ananias and Sapphira points us to the danger of the sin of hypocrisy. It is amazing that what this couple did, attracted severest punishment in the early church. It was literally deadly for them. If this is what Holy Spirit always does with his church, there would have been the need today, for a mogul in every church. The sin of this couple was that they conspired together to deceive the apostles and the church. In other words, they were trying to impress everyone with a higher level of spirituality and commitment than they really had.
This kind of behavior has assumed unimaginable dimension in today’s church. People, including leaders assuming false appearance of virtue or goodness, with dissimulation of real character or inclinations. Sheer dishonesty, lies, manipulation and questionable motives are the trend. We come to church with the mask of spirituality whereas, pretence, sham, hypocrisy, pretending to be something we are not. We are all guilty of trying to impress others with our commitment and devotion to Christ, even though we know in our heart that we are exaggerating.
Our lives are filled with pride, envy, hatred in homes, in the church and between brethren. For one’s spouse, for brethren. We come to church and put on a mask that says everything’s fine! Everything’s wonderful! When we are asked, how are things going. “Great, great! Fine!” “How’s everything at home?” “Oh, wonderful! We’re having a wonderful time!” The minute we say that and it’s not true, we die. Death sets in.
How do we deal with this problem within ourselves? We are all prone to the sin of hypocrisy and that’s the reason we should consciously pursue godly character.
Repent means to acknowledge that you have been doing it wrong and then turn from the sinful ways. I urge you to allow God’s Word to confront your life. If you’re playing the religion game, quit now! Get real with the living God. Spend time each day with Him. Judge your sins and turn from them. Seek to grow in godly character. Our God desires truth in the innermost being (Ps 51:6).
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