Genesis 39:9

“There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”

     One time a close friend and I were planning a vacation. We were both very excited about it. We had planned it, anticipating all the fun things we would do. However, the plans never came to fruition. We had a falling out and the trip was canceled. Even when things were later patched up, we never could get that trip back. We may go on other trips, but that trip was a wasted opportunity. This taught me a valuable life lesson: even if relationships are renewed, sin has consequences.

     Many times we sin against our brethern. We hope and desire that forgiveness will be granted even after we mess up. Yet the forgiveness offered never takes away the events of what happened. Take David for example. He was truly penitent for sleeping with Bathsheba and murdering her husband. Did this return Bathsheba’s husband to her? No. Think back in your own life. Have their been times were a situation was resolved with a less than satisfactory solution because of people’s sin? They may have forgiven each other, but the time wasted in sin caused the perfect solution to become untenable.

    The same thing can happen with God. When we sin against God, we know He will forgive us. Yet every sin separates us from God a little more. It hurts are progression and growth as Christians. We can not earn back that time spent in sin. We can not gain back the influence we might have lost because we were mired in our sinful path. This should motivate us be more righteous in our behavior toward God and others. We may not be able to gain any wasted time back, but we can resolve to lose as little time to sin in the future as possible.

“There is no one greater in this house than I, and he has withheld nothing from me except you, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great evil and sin against God?”

Galatians 6:1

Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; {each one} looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.

     My little baby neice is incredibly precious. She is just six months old and is the life of every room she is. Everytime I am around her, I look forward to a chance to hold her. The problem is that those opportunities do not come as easily as I would like. My neice is very picky. Most of the time she only wants to be held by her mother. At other times, women are the only ones deemed acceptable. Very rarely will she be okay being held by a man.

    Of course I cherish those times that I get to hold her. However, even if it starts off okay, that does not mean that she will not be getting upset soon. So if that ever happens, I try to appease her in any way possible. I get stuffed animals, I take her to play with the dog, anything and everything I can do so that she will still want to stay with me. While this is not necessarily a bad thing, I realized that this could easily lead to spoiling her, or even worse letting her do something her parents do not allow or that would endanger her. All in the name of having her like me.

    This is something that does not always change when we start dealing with older people. We have a desire to be liked and well received by those we come into contact with. This makes it intimidating for us to rebuke them or warn them of their sin. We want to appease them as well, hoping that if we do so, they will love us and accept us. Yet it would be unloving to do so, just as it would be unloving to let my neice play with an electrical outlet just so she would not get upset at me. Sometimes we have to be willing to sacrifice acceptance to show love. 

Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; {each one} looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted.

Acts 5:2

and kept back {some} of the price for himself, with his wife’s full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles’ feet.

     As you read this story you can almost see what is going through the minds of Ananias and Sapphira. They had just recently seen Barnabas sell his property and give the money to the elders. Barnabas is the epitomy of unity of the first century church, and is used that way by Luke’s narrative. What he did was very praiseworthy and you can imagine that it was something that people noticed and spread. It may have even been this story that began the trend of him being called the “son of encouragement”.

     The attention given to Barnabas for this great act was not lost on Ananias and Sapphira. They see the attention that has been garnered upon them, and it becomes their undoing. Somewhere in their heart they desire the glory that was given to Barnabas. So they come up with a plan in order to receive the same praise. They decide that they will lie about what they sold their property for. It is bad enough to do something righteous for evil motives, but to pretend to do something righteous is even worse. They want all of the recognition with none of the sacrifice.

     To say that God did not appreciate their actions is an understatement. God struck both of them dead. It seems as though God would us be in open, honest rebellion rather than to decietfully appear as though we are following Him. God desires us to do good out of love and righteousness. Many times we do it because we want the appreciation or the recognition. Instead we need to do it because it is a noble thing to do, not because we want others to think we are noble. Otherwise our fates will not be much better than Ananias and Sapphira.

and kept back {some} of the price for himself, with his wife’s full knowledge, and bringing a portion of it, he laid it at the apostles’ feet.

Acts 4:36

Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles (which translated means Son of Encouragement),

     Joseph the Levite is not a name used often when people are talking abou the Bible, despite the fact that Joseph was a pivotal character in much of Luke’s narrative in Acts. Everyone knows him by the name of Barnabas. It would be interesting to see how many people know what his actual name was. The name conferred to him is very descriptive of his character. It means son of encouragement. Anyone who is given that name should consider it a great honor.

    The often gave names based on character traits in Biblical times. This was definitely the case with Barnabas. He was a man who offered great encouragement. In this chapter we see that he sells off property in order to help fellow Christians who are in need. Elsewhere in scripture we see that he was one of the first in Jerusalem to accept Paul’s conversion. He journeys with Paul and helps in many conversions. He is in prayer often. Here and elsewhere we see that when his fellow Christians have needs, he is one of the first one’s there to sign up.

     We need to aspire to be like Barnabas. We need to develop the attitude of service that he did. He was encouraging because he was always looking ot help others. He found needs and did what was necessary to help. We can do that today too. It does not just have to be financially either. We can encourage others through our service. We can have a kind word in the midst of a frustrating day. We can offer prayer and study in times of trials. We can offer a shoulder to cry on. Yet all of these rely on a specific component in our life: sacrifice. We have to be willing to sacrifice our time, our money, our effort. If we are willing to sacrifice for the sake of others, then we too will be sons of encouragement.

Now Joseph, a Levite of Cyprian birth, who was also called Barnabas by the apostles (which translated means Son of Encouragement),

James 3:16

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

     One night I went to a free exhibition put on by a professional basketball team. They did some drills and then scrimmaged and some fans were able to just come and watch them at no charge. It was very enjoyable until the end. The players started throwing things into the stands for fans: the pullover jerseys, towels, and their autographed shoes that they had worn that night. As they through a shoe into the audience a very elderly lady was estatic to find that it landed right in her hands.

     As she started to get excited, all of the sudden a middle age woman reached over and grabbed it out of her hands. She pulled so hard that she broke fingernails and blood vessels in the elderly womans hands. While the elderly woman was excited, she decided it was not worth all of that pain. Those who saw the whole thing play out stood with jaws agape. They could not believe that she would do that. It was something you would expect from little children when their parents were not looking, not from a middle aged woman.

     It is amazing the depths  we will sink in order to get what we want. What the woman did was appalling both for what she did, but also because it was so public and she showed no penitance. Yet we can be just as selfish in our actions and attitudes. We can manipulate people, lie to them, steal from them and use them to fulfill what we want. Yet we justify it because no one noticed. That is not right. We need to be completely honest with ourselves and make sure that when we act, we act righteously with love towards our neighbors.

For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

Revelation 10:10

I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.

Here in Revelation, John uses an image found in the book of Ezekiel. The image is one of eating a scroll. It represents the word of God being put into the mouth of His prophet. The prophet was then responsible for preaching that word. Here in Revelation we see that that word of God is sweet at first, and then bitter later. This represents the truth in God’s word and how we may feel about preaching it.

There is a joy in preaching the word of God to those who are willing to believe. It is a message of joy and hope. It is a message of eternal life.  It preaches of their salvation and that the Lord their God will rescue them. The word teaches of a beautiful home beyond this life. That message is a sweet taste in the mouth of the one preaching. They look forward to being able to share thejoyful message.

However, their is a sad message on the flip side of that coin. That is when one has to preach of the judgment coming upon those who refuse to repent of their sin. God’s word teaches that they will face eternal damnation. There is no joy in telling someone that. It is a bitter feeling. Yet we cannot shy away from teaching the whole truth. We must teach the whole word of God, bitter and sweet, so that all may know what awaits them and act accordingly.

I took the little book out of the angel’s hand and ate it, and in my mouth it was sweet as honey; and when I had eaten it, my stomach was made bitter.

Matthew 18:33

‘Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’

     Romans 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Personal experience and observation shows us that we have all sinned repeatedly against God. Such sin ruins our relationship with Him. It creates a barrier between us and Him. Unfortunately, there is nothing we can do that makes up for our sin. There is nothing we can offer that would cause us to be right with God. That being the case, we are completely at His mercy. Were it not for His grace, we would all surely face judgment.

      Sometimes other people sin against us. In Matthew 18, Jesus uses a parable to show us how forgiving we are required to be. Whenver someone wrongs us, it is very easy for us to want to nurse that angry. We want to hold onto the bitterness.  We may let them have some restoration of the relationship back, but we really prefer that what they did to loom over them like a dark cloud, making them remember what it is they did or maybe even how gracious we are.

     As Christians, these attitudes have no place in our hearts. We need to have an attitude of forgiveness. The mercy we show should emulate what God has given us. He has completely removed that stain, and it no longer impacts our relationship with Him. Considering how often we sin against Him, should we not be able to forgive our brother’s lesser debts? By showing mercy to others, we recognize the great mercy God has shown to us. If we refuse to show mercy, God will not show mercy when it comes time to pay our debts.

‘Should you not also have had mercy on your fellow slave, in the same way that I had mercy on you?’

Matthew 25:40

“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, {even} the least {of them,} you did it to Me.’

There are a lot of times that Christians get caught up in the doctrinal aspect of following Christ. They argue for hours over the nature of God. Other times they may spend a lot of times figuring out what is and what is not authorized in worship. This is a valuable use of time. However, many times we can make the mistake of thinking that this is the most important part of being a Christian. We think that if we do not do anything too terrible, and if we have our worship services in order as they are supposed to be, then we have done what it is that a Christian should do.

As Christians, we need to understand that there is much more to being a Christian than having an accurate understanding of doctrines. One of the biggest parts is to actually live the life of a Christian. Jesus here says that a big part of that is our service to others. We need to make sure that we have loving actions to those who are in need. To ignore their needs is to be unloving.

To make that point crystal clear, Jesus tells us that our actions towards others should be considered as direct actions toward Him. How would act if we saw Christ in person? What would we do to help Him if He ever needed it? Hopefully the answer is that we would do whatever is needed, and probably even more. What we need to keep in mind though is that how we treat other people is actually how we treat Christ. Our love toward mankind is an accurate representation of our love for God. If we do not show love to others, we are in effect not showing love to God. However, if we serve others, we are indeed serving Christ our Lord and Savior.

“The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, {even} the least {of them,} you did it to Me.’

Luke 15:8

“Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?

I am a person who loses things. It can be very difficult for me to remember where I last put something. So I strongly relate to the woman that Jesus discusses in this story. You can imagine her having to pay a bill the  next day, scouring the house, not knowing where she put the money. She looks everywhere. She retraces all of her steps. And just as she is about to lose hope that it can be found, it appears out of no where. As soon as she finds the coin, she rejoices over the fact that she has it now.

We need to emulate two attitudes of this woman. The first is how she searches. The lost coin represents sinners who are afar from God. When we know of someone who is in sin, what is our response? Do we just laze about as if it does not matter or we do not care? Or do we start searching for them? When it comes to helping those who are estranged from God, we should leave no stone unturned. It is not enough to just hope that they come to God and then sit back down on the couch. We must be actively looking all throughout the house.

The second is the joy that the lady finds when she uncovers her coin. When other people come to Christ, at times we can be unaffected by this. Sometimes we may be skeptical about if their repentance was “real” or not. In the worse case scenario we may be like the Pharisees and have a heart of bitterness or resentment at their salvation. But salvation, no matter who or when it is, should be a cause of great joy in our lives. We should be excited that another person has turned to God, and that his return has caused our Lord so much joy.

Or what woman, if she has ten silver coins and loses one coin, does not light a lamp and sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?

Exodus 32:32

“But now, if You will, forgive their sin–and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!”

Moses was a great leader. He was the standard for the Jewish people. One of the things that makes Him such a great leader is His patience. Moses was a man who had to be constantly frustrated by his brethren. They had all seen the miracles of God bring them out of Egypt single-handedly to the point that they basically plundered the Egyptians. And yet what do we see the people saying to Moses over and over again? “Why did you bring us from Egypt? We would have been better off there than dead in the wilderness,” the said. It does not quite have the same ring as “Give me liberty or give me death!”

Every small thing that either went wrong or was not quite good enough for them, they came and complained to Moses. And yet Moses still has great love for Him. Here they have built the image of the calf in order to worship it. God is obviously infuriated, and wants to destroy this people. Amazingly enough, Moses intervenes. He goes before God, and asks God to hold back His wrath. We might expect that his natural reaction would have been to say, “Good riddance!” and move on. Instead he interceded for them.

What else is amazing is the lengths that he went to intercede. He even asked the Lord to blot out his name from the book of life for their sake. Now that shows great love. The question we have to ask ourselves is this: When facing similar circumstances, do we show the same attitude? Or are we ready to cast aside our fellow brethern at the most convenient opportunity. We need to follow Moses example, and exhibit great patience to those around us.

“But now, if You will, forgive their sin–and if not, please blot me out from Your book which You have written!”