Ananias and Sapphira: Discipline Part II

Ananias and Sapphira:     Discipline         part II

God will provide a way out of distress and disaster.  It is called repentance and obedience!

“Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart’”  (Joel 2:12).   The Holy Spirit admonishes: “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did in the rebellion….” (Heb. 3:7-8).  God is speaking!  That means He is still with us and has not forsaken us.  He is saying, “Return to me now.”  Not tomorrow, or next week, but now!  We must return and repent now.  Paul tells us in 2 Cor. 6:2, “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favor, now is the day of salvation.”

There is only one way of coming back into favor with God.  Most people today do not like to hear about sin or repentance.  They want God’s favor without repentance.

The only way back is through repentance.  God revealed this to Solomon in 2 Chr. 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”  

The law of repentance is still operative today!   Anyone who takes hold of this promise and repents will receive forgiveness and restoration with Jesus Christ.

“Even now,’ declares the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and mourning.  Rend your heart and not your garments.’”   To ‘rend’ or ‘tear’ our heart means “Listen,  Trust,  Obey,  and  Turn!   

Do the will of God with a soft heart.  Forsake all rebellion against truth and forsake worldly passions, ungodliness, all falsehood and lies.  Instead of tearing our garments, we must tear our stony hearts, making them soft and responsive.

In Zec. 7:12-13 we are told, “They made their hearts as hard as flint and would not listen to the law or to the words that the Lord Almighty had sent by his Spirit through the earlier prophets.  So the Lord Almighty was very angry. ‘When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen,’ says the Lord Almighty.”

We can never come into the favor of God without repentance, without a soft heart, without listening, without obeying and believing the Word of God.