June 10, 2024 • 19 mins
Welcome back to Soteria Prophetic Ministries! In this episode, we delve into the attention-seeking spirit, drawing lessons from the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5:1-11. This married couple sought recognition within the early church through deceit, leading to dire consequences.
We explore how their actions reveal the perils of seeking acknowledgment and the importance of honesty in our spiritual and everyday lives. Learn about the significance of pure motives, the dangers of hypocrisy, and the need for accountability. Reflect on the importance of seeking God's approval over man's and the wisdom the Holy Spirit provides in discerning deceitful behaviors.
Join us as we uncover the lessons from this sobering biblical account and understand how to walk in integrity and truth, ensuring our actions align with God's will.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hey, God bless you. Welcome back to Soteria Prophetic Ministries.
Let's talk a little bit about the attention-seeking spirit.
The attention-seeking spirit, and I want to pull some context out of the book of Acts.
This is Acts chapter 5, verses 1 through 11.
Not going to read it to you, of course, but I want to just pull some context from it.
(00:23):
It's talking about Ananias and Sapphira.
And if you are familiar with them, then you know that this was the two of them,
they were a couple, a married couple.
And this was during the time of the early church when, you know,
there was this like the uniformity and everyone had all things common.
There was a spirit of sharing and just looking out for the general welfare of the brotherhood.
(00:49):
And so this particular couple, they had a heart to give because during that
time, the Bible says everyone had all things in common and they laid their goods,
possessions at the apostles' feet because there was a need. The church was struggling.
There were some who had pretty much forsaken all, right, to follow Christ and had left things behind.
(01:10):
And so the early church came together to make sure that everyone had their needs met.
And so this particular couple, the the Bible says, they sold some property,
which was kind of the thing.
People were selling property, selling land, and they would donate the proceeds
of it to the church through the hands of the apostles.
And so where we find in Acts chapter 5 verses 1 through 11, where this husband and wife decided to,
(01:37):
hey, we're going to follow suit and we're going to sell off some land and we're
going to donate, but we're not going to donate all of it.
You know, we're going to keep some back for ourselves.
But we want the same notoriety. We want the same attention.
We want the same acknowledgement and recognition like everybody else.
(01:57):
And, you know, people like that, you know, people throw their names in the hat
or their hats in the ring and they want to be acknowledged.
If you work in corporate America or even in education, you know,
your work speaks for you.
And, you know, when you create, you know, a work or a study,
you develop a study, you put your name to it so that you can be acknowledged.
Even when I was in grad school and you had to write all these papers and you
(02:21):
always cite your reference or you give credit or you acknowledge the author.
So it's not so unusual to see that kind of filtering over into the church.
But the Bible says, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature,
right? So we should put on the mind of Christ.
And so things that we do in corporate or things that we do in the workplace,
(02:41):
they don't always translate over to what we do in the kingdom of God.
In the kingdom of God, in many cases, the Bible says what you do in secret,
God rewards you openly. So at any rate, there was some personality things happening
between Ananias and Sapphira.
And the unfortunate thing is one was no wiser than the other.
There was a saying, I won't repeat it exactly like my dad used to say it,
(03:04):
but he would often make comments, you know, these little wise nuggets he would
drop every once in a while.
And he would always say, be careful who you marry because somebody in the house has to have sense.
And of course, he made a lighthearted comment out of a reality.
Sometimes, you know, folks yoke together and they have the same mindset to their demise.
(03:27):
You need somebody who can pull you to the side and say, hey,
honey, I don't think that's a good idea.
Or, sweetheart, let's pray about that. Or, I don't think you're hearing God.
So apparently that was missing in the relationship with Ananias and Sapphira.
They didn't have the ability to check one another. They both conspired together
to deceive and to earn this reputation or this recognition by deceit.
(03:55):
And so when we talk about attention-seeking spirits, these are spirits that
yearn for acknowledgement,
yearn for notoriety, yearn for recognition, and will do almost anything to get that.
You know, will sometimes betray others, sometimes act out of disloyalty.
(04:18):
I mean, if you know people like that, that will do anything it takes to get to the top.
It doesn't matter who they step over. It doesn't matter how they damage relationships.
They just want to be seen. They just want to meet that certain goal that they
have in life to attain this certain type of status. These are some dangerous people.
So with Ananias and Sapphira, they sold the property and they conspired that
(04:39):
this is what they were going to say.
And if anybody asks you, this is what you say. And they both held on to it.
The unfortunate thing is that the Holy Ghost was on board.
And so when they went to present their money to Peter, the husband went first.
And so the Bible says that, you know, he told them, hey, I sold the property,
and I'm paraphrasing, for this amount of money.
(05:01):
And then Peter judged them, and the Holy Spirit began to, you know, release judgment.
Some may say, well, that was really harsh. You know, that was just a one and done.
I'm sure he could have learned his lesson. But you have to understand that this
was during the time that the early church was being formed. and you've got to
make sure that the foundation of any new thing is built on truth and righteousness.
(05:22):
Otherwise, you're going to find yourself building on top of hypocrisy and lies.
And, you know, of course, a house built on sand is doomed to fail, right?
So it was inevitable that this was dealt with.
Their motives had to be exposed because here's the thing, it was their property.
(05:44):
They didn't have to give number one
number two they could have said we sold the property and I'm giving you 80%
we keep in 20 it was theirs and even even Peterson it was not yours right like
what why did you have to lie and so many times you find people who are operating
in attention-seeking spirits.
(06:05):
There's a tendency to lie about details that really don't even matter.
There's a tendency to overshare, and there's also the tendency to undershare.
In other words, they value their image so much that they're going to be very
particular about what you know about them, right?
(06:27):
For fear of you not approving them, for fear of you not accepting them.
And so they're They're going to tell you just enough to bait you in to accept
them and give them that acknowledgement and recognition that they're looking for.
Unfortunately, the wife goes in about three hours later, the Bible says,
looking for her husband.
And so Peter says, again, she's none the wiser.
(06:50):
Peter says, hey, did you all sell this for such and such? She said, yes.
And he said, behold, look at the door. The men that carried your husband out
will carry you out. and she fell and passed away.
So I want to bring this to your awareness that even though during that time
God was building the church and there were spirits of generosity in operation,
(07:12):
there were spirits of unity in operation,
there was also spirits of greed and deceit.
So be mindful that just because everybody's giving, not everyone is giving out
of that genuine heart. Not everyone Everyone is serving.
Not everyone is ministering out of a genuine heart. And it will take the Holy
Ghost because no one else would have known.
(07:34):
The Holy Ghost revealed to Peter there is a spirit of deception. There is a conspiracy.
There is a lie that is being fabricated to receive glory that is not due. It's undue, right?
It is being usurped. They're taking authority by telling a lie.
(07:55):
So their actions were in contrast to everybody else. And that's what set them apart.
We don't have a record of scripture where Peter asked anybody else,
hey, did you bring all your money?
And again, it wasn't that that was the requirement.
This was the free will offering.
This was given out of the goodness of your heart, out of the abundance of the
(08:18):
treasures that God has blessed you with. and freely as you've received, freely you give.
No one was under any demand or pressure to give.
These were free will offerings. But even in that, Ananias and Sapphira decided
that we're going to go ahead and we're going to feign ourselves to give freely.
But in all actuality, they did not.
(08:38):
So they sought recognition. They wanted praise for their work,
but they withheld some things.
Sometimes I believe that some of our prayers are not being answered or some
of the things that we believe in God for are not being released because many
times we don't tell the whole story for whatever reason.
Even with God, even with the Lord, we don't tell the whole story because of
(09:03):
shame or because of some other type of motive or whatever that we may have working
within our soulless realm that we haven't necessarily dealt with.
And we'll go to God, Lord, they did this to me. Lord, they did that.
One thing I love about King David and the Psalms that he wrote,
not only did he tell God about his enemies, but he also told on himself.
And we've got to get to a place in prayer, in our relationships and in our dealings
(09:27):
where we're honest, right?
Where we are honest in our evaluations, honest in our sharing,
honest in our dealings with one another.
Their deceit was driven by a recognition and a desire to be seen and admired. They wanted the same.
(09:49):
That recognition that everybody else had. They wanted it, but they weren't willing to pay the same price.
Don't you know situations like that? Aren't you aware of situations like that,
where people want to attain a certain level in life, a certain thing,
a certain type of prestige,
but they're not willing to do all the work, and they look for shortcuts,
(10:10):
and they look for ways to kind of get around the red tape.
But you got to come to God, clean people of God. You got to stand straight up
and you know what I'm saying? You got to come to God clean. You got to bring them all your stuff.
You cannot seek to seek things from the Lord and you're not coming to him with a pure heart.
Unfortunately, Ananias and Sapphira's case, this cost them their life.
(10:33):
Some may say that's harsh. You know, who's to say? My job is just to report the facts.
I don't, you know, who am I to say, God, you know, really?
I think that was a bit harsh. It was their first time, but really was it?
Again, we're only brought into
what happened with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5, 1 through 11.
How do we know what other, you know, engagements, dishonest engagements,
(10:58):
they involve themselves in other maybe dishonest business transactions?
Let me tell you something. Sometimes when you see people act out in certain
negative character traits, it's not necessarily the first time.
And then you have a husband and wife couple that were okay.
They were consenting. That means this was not the first time that there was
(11:21):
a situation to where they both conspired.
So again, we have no Bible for that. That's just me knowing people, right?
But God is just God.
And I don't feel, and matter of fact, I know he would not pronounce that type
of judgment without there being some other factors, other things to be considered
(11:44):
that we may not be made aware of.
So I just wanted to put that out there. Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit.
So how do you know when you're confronting someone and they're operating in
an attention-seeking spirit?
The Holy Spirit will let you know that person is not being honest with you.
That person is holding some information.
That person is holding back. Or that person is, you know, my young people say,
(12:06):
they're doing too much. You know what I'm saying?
You're just doing too much. The Holy Spirit will let you know when a person's
personality is not genuine. and then the Holy Spirit will let you know what
the next steps are as well.
It's not going to be like it was with Ananias and Sapphira.
It may be, God may give you other directives. He may, you know,
speak to you and give you another set of instructions.
(12:28):
It may not necessarily be like what happened here, God forbid, right?
But it may be, okay, withdraw or walk soft or keep your eyes open or don't trust.
You know, he'll give you, one thing about the Holy Spirit, He's not going to
reveal things to you and then just leave you there to figure it out, right?
He leads and guides us into all truth and righteousness.
(12:51):
So if he's going to reveal a truth, you better believe that there's going to
be some type of follow-up with how you are to conduct yourself so that you can
maintain the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
This was a divine judgment. It was a speedy judgment. And it had to be because,
again, the early church is forming.
It's kind of like when the Lord on Jeremiah talks about the potter's wheel.
(13:12):
And when you're forming something, especially when you're creating it out of
nothing, you want to look for the lumps and bumps and bruises because you want
to make sure that it has the capacity to reach its fullest potential.
And so I believe that that's what God did with the early church.
He made sure that there were no lumps, no bruises in the Old Testament.
It talks about the yeast, the leaven, that leaven out the lump,
(13:35):
making sure there's nothing in there that's going to cause contaminants or irritants.
And so he does that with us too. God, He exposes the lumps.
He exposes the irritants. He exposes those things. I know early this morning,
my eyes, I was just itching, itching, itching, itching.
And I said, is it my allergies? Is it, is there something in my eye, what have you?
And whenever God exposes to you an irritant, let me tell you something,
(13:58):
you're going to be on a search and a journey to find out what in the world this is.
And of course, I went and grabbed my eye drops and put a few dabs in and I was
good. So it could have been dust, could have been whatever.
But those irritants come to let you know something is wrong.
And then God leads you to find the discovery of the solution.
Okay. So a couple of things I want to leave with you. God wants us to be honest in all things.
(14:22):
If you only going to give the 80%, then give the 80% and be honest.
Hey, I sold this, but I need 20% to pay my bills. Or you know what?
You don't even have to justify it.
Here's 80% or here's 70% or whatever. Just be honest.
Recognize the dangers of being a hypocrite.
Don't tell too much and don't tell not enough. You know what I'm saying?
(14:43):
Just speak the truth because there are consequences to being double-tongued
and being double-minded.
The Bible says a double-minded man can't receive anything from the Lord, right?
Because God does not trust a person that can't make up his mind.
Let this mind be in you that is also in Christ Jesus.
There's accountability. God wants us to be accountable. We're going to be held
(15:04):
accountable for our deeds.
Things nowadays, because I
think sometimes it takes a while for us to see the fruit of certain deeds.
We think, oh, it's over and done. It's under the bridge, under the blood.
I shouted over it. You'd be amazed how things come back and present itself as
a consequence of a misbehavior. You want to be very mindful about that.
(15:25):
And the other thing I want you to keep in mind is to fear God.
Fear God and fear with a reverent fear, not scary fear, but a holy fear, right?
To where you know better, right?
There's some things I just know not to try that.
It may come across my mind, but I just know, I know better.
You know, when I was raising my children, there were certain things that I trained
(15:47):
them and I made my expectations clear.
And so they would know, don't do that. Mommy wouldn't want you to do that.
You're going to get in trouble.
You know, there's that, you know better, that reverent fear where you've been
taught that, you know, there's certain things I just cannot do.
There's certain things I just won't do, right?
Our God is a holy God. We cannot stand before him or the people who represents
(16:09):
him in the earth and just have all kinds of conversations and think it's okay.
It's not okay. The Bible said we are on earth. He said, let your words be few.
So let's just be mindful about some of the things that we say.
So think about, you know, your motives when you're giving, when you're serving,
when you're helping. I know I do.
You know, God, am I doing this out of a pure heart? And I'll be honest with you.
(16:31):
Sometimes there are things that I'm required to do that I just don't want to do.
That's just my human side. And I'll say, Lord, please help me so that you can
get glory. I really don't want to do this, but help me, God,
so that you can get glory.
So I'm going to acknowledge that I'm having a hard time with this thing you're asking me to do.
And with that, I've got the wisdom and the reverent fear of God to say, Lord, I'm struggling.
(16:53):
I need you to help me with this. And he always does. So you want to make sure
that your motives, that what you do for the Lord, you do it as unto him.
Not about so much the people, but you do whatever you do as unto the Lord.
You know, so let that be your motivating factor when you're giving,
when you're serving, when you're helping.
Let it be done as unto the Lord. And always be accountable.
(17:16):
You know, make sure you have people in your life that will keep you accountable.
That was not cool for Ananias and Sapphira to not be able to hold each other accountable.
Like, you need to question partnerships and friendships and relationships that
let you get by with stuff that you know is not cool. Like the Holy Ghost is
telling you, wrong, wrong, daughter, no, son, no, brother.
And you're just overriding it, overriding it, hitting the snooze button like
(17:39):
I do on my phone sometimes.
So let's just be mindful about that. So I just wanted to leave that thought
with you about Ananias and Sapphira, talking about attention,
seeking spirit. Some of you may have never connected the two.
But yeah, there are actually biblical examples.
I've got plenty others. others, but that one was really heavy on my heart tonight
that they wanted the approval of man so much that they lost their life because
(18:02):
they lied to the Holy Spirit.
So let that be a lesson for each of us, a sobering reminder that whatever we
do, we do it as unto the Lord. We operate out of the spirit of integrity.
We be honest and we make sure that we're seeking God's approval above and beyond anybody else.
When God favors you, then he'll give you favor with man.
But the Bible says is trusting man is a snare.
(18:26):
Anytime you put your trust in man, you will become ensnared. Why?
Because you will always, first of all, a man's appetite is never filled.
And so the more you do for man, the more man expects, right?
So you don't ever want to put yourself to where you're trying to please people
because that appetite is never full.
They'll always want more. There will always be more. The eyes are never full.
(18:46):
So let's just be mindful about that. If we're operating in inattention-seeking behavior.
Let us be mindful of this lesson. Let us go before the Lord in prayer and ask
God to purge us and to heal us from those areas where we feel we need man's attention.
Yeah, we need to get along with people, but let's seek to serve and seek God first.
And then everything else the Bible says, you seek the kingdom and his righteousness.
(19:10):
All these other things will be added. God bless you.
Hey, God bless you. Welcome back to Soteria Prophetic Ministries.
Let's talk a little bit about the attention-seeking spirit.
The attention-seeking spirit, and I want to pull some context out of the book of Acts.
This is Acts chapter 5, verses 1 through 11.
Not going to read it to you, of course, but I want to just pull some context from it.
(00:23):
It's talking about Ananias and Sapphira.
And if you are familiar with them, then you know that this was the two of them,
they were a couple, a married couple.
And this was during the time of the early church when, you know,
there was this like the uniformity and everyone had all things common.
There was a spirit of sharing and just looking out for the general welfare of the brotherhood.
(00:49):
And so this particular couple, they had a heart to give because during that
time, the Bible says everyone had all things in common and they laid their goods,
possessions at the apostles' feet because there was a need. The church was struggling.
There were some who had pretty much forsaken all, right, to follow Christ and had left things behind.
(01:10):
And so the early church came together to make sure that everyone had their needs met.
And so this particular couple, the the Bible says, they sold some property,
which was kind of the thing.
People were selling property, selling land, and they would donate the proceeds
of it to the church through the hands of the apostles.
And so where we find in Acts chapter 5 verses 1 through 11, where this husband and wife decided to,
(01:37):
hey, we're going to follow suit and we're going to sell off some land and we're
going to donate, but we're not going to donate all of it.
You know, we're going to keep some back for ourselves.
But we want the same notoriety. We want the same attention.
We want the same acknowledgement and recognition like everybody else.
(01:57):
And, you know, people like that, you know, people throw their names in the hat
or their hats in the ring and they want to be acknowledged.
If you work in corporate America or even in education, you know,
your work speaks for you.
And, you know, when you create, you know, a work or a study,
you develop a study, you put your name to it so that you can be acknowledged.
Even when I was in grad school and you had to write all these papers and you
(02:21):
always cite your reference or you give credit or you acknowledge the author.
So it's not so unusual to see that kind of filtering over into the church.
But the Bible says, if any man be in Christ, he's a new creature,
right? So we should put on the mind of Christ.
And so things that we do in corporate or things that we do in the workplace,
(02:41):
they don't always translate over to what we do in the kingdom of God.
In the kingdom of God, in many cases, the Bible says what you do in secret,
God rewards you openly. So at any rate, there was some personality things happening
between Ananias and Sapphira.
And the unfortunate thing is one was no wiser than the other.
There was a saying, I won't repeat it exactly like my dad used to say it,
(03:04):
but he would often make comments, you know, these little wise nuggets he would
drop every once in a while.
And he would always say, be careful who you marry because somebody in the house has to have sense.
And of course, he made a lighthearted comment out of a reality.
Sometimes, you know, folks yoke together and they have the same mindset to their demise.
(03:27):
You need somebody who can pull you to the side and say, hey,
honey, I don't think that's a good idea.
Or, sweetheart, let's pray about that. Or, I don't think you're hearing God.
So apparently that was missing in the relationship with Ananias and Sapphira.
They didn't have the ability to check one another. They both conspired together
to deceive and to earn this reputation or this recognition by deceit.
(03:55):
And so when we talk about attention-seeking spirits, these are spirits that
yearn for acknowledgement,
yearn for notoriety, yearn for recognition, and will do almost anything to get that.
You know, will sometimes betray others, sometimes act out of disloyalty.
(04:18):
I mean, if you know people like that, that will do anything it takes to get to the top.
It doesn't matter who they step over. It doesn't matter how they damage relationships.
They just want to be seen. They just want to meet that certain goal that they
have in life to attain this certain type of status. These are some dangerous people.
So with Ananias and Sapphira, they sold the property and they conspired that
(04:39):
this is what they were going to say.
And if anybody asks you, this is what you say. And they both held on to it.
The unfortunate thing is that the Holy Ghost was on board.
And so when they went to present their money to Peter, the husband went first.
And so the Bible says that, you know, he told them, hey, I sold the property,
and I'm paraphrasing, for this amount of money.
(05:01):
And then Peter judged them, and the Holy Spirit began to, you know, release judgment.
Some may say, well, that was really harsh. You know, that was just a one and done.
I'm sure he could have learned his lesson. But you have to understand that this
was during the time that the early church was being formed. and you've got to
make sure that the foundation of any new thing is built on truth and righteousness.
(05:22):
Otherwise, you're going to find yourself building on top of hypocrisy and lies.
And, you know, of course, a house built on sand is doomed to fail, right?
So it was inevitable that this was dealt with.
Their motives had to be exposed because here's the thing, it was their property.
(05:44):
They didn't have to give number one
number two they could have said we sold the property and I'm giving you 80%
we keep in 20 it was theirs and even even Peterson it was not yours right like
what why did you have to lie and so many times you find people who are operating
in attention-seeking spirits.
(06:05):
There's a tendency to lie about details that really don't even matter.
There's a tendency to overshare, and there's also the tendency to undershare.
In other words, they value their image so much that they're going to be very
particular about what you know about them, right?
(06:27):
For fear of you not approving them, for fear of you not accepting them.
And so they're They're going to tell you just enough to bait you in to accept
them and give them that acknowledgement and recognition that they're looking for.
Unfortunately, the wife goes in about three hours later, the Bible says,
looking for her husband.
And so Peter says, again, she's none the wiser.
(06:50):
Peter says, hey, did you all sell this for such and such? She said, yes.
And he said, behold, look at the door. The men that carried your husband out
will carry you out. and she fell and passed away.
So I want to bring this to your awareness that even though during that time
God was building the church and there were spirits of generosity in operation,
(07:12):
there were spirits of unity in operation,
there was also spirits of greed and deceit.
So be mindful that just because everybody's giving, not everyone is giving out
of that genuine heart. Not everyone Everyone is serving.
Not everyone is ministering out of a genuine heart. And it will take the Holy
Ghost because no one else would have known.
(07:34):
The Holy Ghost revealed to Peter there is a spirit of deception. There is a conspiracy.
There is a lie that is being fabricated to receive glory that is not due. It's undue, right?
It is being usurped. They're taking authority by telling a lie.
(07:55):
So their actions were in contrast to everybody else. And that's what set them apart.
We don't have a record of scripture where Peter asked anybody else,
hey, did you bring all your money?
And again, it wasn't that that was the requirement.
This was the free will offering.
This was given out of the goodness of your heart, out of the abundance of the
(08:18):
treasures that God has blessed you with. and freely as you've received, freely you give.
No one was under any demand or pressure to give.
These were free will offerings. But even in that, Ananias and Sapphira decided
that we're going to go ahead and we're going to feign ourselves to give freely.
But in all actuality, they did not.
(08:38):
So they sought recognition. They wanted praise for their work,
but they withheld some things.
Sometimes I believe that some of our prayers are not being answered or some
of the things that we believe in God for are not being released because many
times we don't tell the whole story for whatever reason.
Even with God, even with the Lord, we don't tell the whole story because of
(09:03):
shame or because of some other type of motive or whatever that we may have working
within our soulless realm that we haven't necessarily dealt with.
And we'll go to God, Lord, they did this to me. Lord, they did that.
One thing I love about King David and the Psalms that he wrote,
not only did he tell God about his enemies, but he also told on himself.
And we've got to get to a place in prayer, in our relationships and in our dealings
(09:27):
where we're honest, right?
Where we are honest in our evaluations, honest in our sharing,
honest in our dealings with one another.
Their deceit was driven by a recognition and a desire to be seen and admired. They wanted the same.
(09:49):
That recognition that everybody else had. They wanted it, but they weren't willing to pay the same price.
Don't you know situations like that? Aren't you aware of situations like that,
where people want to attain a certain level in life, a certain thing,
a certain type of prestige,
but they're not willing to do all the work, and they look for shortcuts,
(10:10):
and they look for ways to kind of get around the red tape.
But you got to come to God, clean people of God. You got to stand straight up
and you know what I'm saying? You got to come to God clean. You got to bring them all your stuff.
You cannot seek to seek things from the Lord and you're not coming to him with a pure heart.
Unfortunately, Ananias and Sapphira's case, this cost them their life.
(10:33):
Some may say that's harsh. You know, who's to say? My job is just to report the facts.
I don't, you know, who am I to say, God, you know, really?
I think that was a bit harsh. It was their first time, but really was it?
Again, we're only brought into
what happened with Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter 5, 1 through 11.
How do we know what other, you know, engagements, dishonest engagements,
(10:58):
they involve themselves in other maybe dishonest business transactions?
Let me tell you something. Sometimes when you see people act out in certain
negative character traits, it's not necessarily the first time.
And then you have a husband and wife couple that were okay.
They were consenting. That means this was not the first time that there was
(11:21):
a situation to where they both conspired.
So again, we have no Bible for that. That's just me knowing people, right?
But God is just God.
And I don't feel, and matter of fact, I know he would not pronounce that type
of judgment without there being some other factors, other things to be considered
(11:44):
that we may not be made aware of.
So I just wanted to put that out there. Peter was filled with the Holy Spirit.
So how do you know when you're confronting someone and they're operating in
an attention-seeking spirit?
The Holy Spirit will let you know that person is not being honest with you.
That person is holding some information.
That person is holding back. Or that person is, you know, my young people say,
(12:06):
they're doing too much. You know what I'm saying?
You're just doing too much. The Holy Spirit will let you know when a person's
personality is not genuine. and then the Holy Spirit will let you know what
the next steps are as well.
It's not going to be like it was with Ananias and Sapphira.
It may be, God may give you other directives. He may, you know,
speak to you and give you another set of instructions.
(12:28):
It may not necessarily be like what happened here, God forbid, right?
But it may be, okay, withdraw or walk soft or keep your eyes open or don't trust.
You know, he'll give you, one thing about the Holy Spirit, He's not going to
reveal things to you and then just leave you there to figure it out, right?
He leads and guides us into all truth and righteousness.
(12:51):
So if he's going to reveal a truth, you better believe that there's going to
be some type of follow-up with how you are to conduct yourself so that you can
maintain the peaceable fruits of righteousness.
This was a divine judgment. It was a speedy judgment. And it had to be because,
again, the early church is forming.
It's kind of like when the Lord on Jeremiah talks about the potter's wheel.
(13:12):
And when you're forming something, especially when you're creating it out of
nothing, you want to look for the lumps and bumps and bruises because you want
to make sure that it has the capacity to reach its fullest potential.
And so I believe that that's what God did with the early church.
He made sure that there were no lumps, no bruises in the Old Testament.
It talks about the yeast, the leaven, that leaven out the lump,
(13:35):
making sure there's nothing in there that's going to cause contaminants or irritants.
And so he does that with us too. God, He exposes the lumps.
He exposes the irritants. He exposes those things. I know early this morning,
my eyes, I was just itching, itching, itching, itching.
And I said, is it my allergies? Is it, is there something in my eye, what have you?
And whenever God exposes to you an irritant, let me tell you something,
(13:58):
you're going to be on a search and a journey to find out what in the world this is.
And of course, I went and grabbed my eye drops and put a few dabs in and I was
good. So it could have been dust, could have been whatever.
But those irritants come to let you know something is wrong.
And then God leads you to find the discovery of the solution.
Okay. So a couple of things I want to leave with you. God wants us to be honest in all things.
(14:22):
If you only going to give the 80%, then give the 80% and be honest.
Hey, I sold this, but I need 20% to pay my bills. Or you know what?
You don't even have to justify it.
Here's 80% or here's 70% or whatever. Just be honest.
Recognize the dangers of being a hypocrite.
Don't tell too much and don't tell not enough. You know what I'm saying?
(14:43):
Just speak the truth because there are consequences to being double-tongued
and being double-minded.
The Bible says a double-minded man can't receive anything from the Lord, right?
Because God does not trust a person that can't make up his mind.
Let this mind be in you that is also in Christ Jesus.
There's accountability. God wants us to be accountable. We're going to be held
(15:04):
accountable for our deeds.
Things nowadays, because I
think sometimes it takes a while for us to see the fruit of certain deeds.
We think, oh, it's over and done. It's under the bridge, under the blood.
I shouted over it. You'd be amazed how things come back and present itself as
a consequence of a misbehavior. You want to be very mindful about that.
(15:25):
And the other thing I want you to keep in mind is to fear God.
Fear God and fear with a reverent fear, not scary fear, but a holy fear, right?
To where you know better, right?
There's some things I just know not to try that.
It may come across my mind, but I just know, I know better.
You know, when I was raising my children, there were certain things that I trained
(15:47):
them and I made my expectations clear.
And so they would know, don't do that. Mommy wouldn't want you to do that.
You're going to get in trouble.
You know, there's that, you know better, that reverent fear where you've been
taught that, you know, there's certain things I just cannot do.
There's certain things I just won't do, right?
Our God is a holy God. We cannot stand before him or the people who represents
(16:09):
him in the earth and just have all kinds of conversations and think it's okay.
It's not okay. The Bible said we are on earth. He said, let your words be few.
So let's just be mindful about some of the things that we say.
So think about, you know, your motives when you're giving, when you're serving,
when you're helping. I know I do.
You know, God, am I doing this out of a pure heart? And I'll be honest with you.
(16:31):
Sometimes there are things that I'm required to do that I just don't want to do.
That's just my human side. And I'll say, Lord, please help me so that you can
get glory. I really don't want to do this, but help me, God,
so that you can get glory.
So I'm going to acknowledge that I'm having a hard time with this thing you're asking me to do.
And with that, I've got the wisdom and the reverent fear of God to say, Lord, I'm struggling.
(16:53):
I need you to help me with this. And he always does. So you want to make sure
that your motives, that what you do for the Lord, you do it as unto him.
Not about so much the people, but you do whatever you do as unto the Lord.
You know, so let that be your motivating factor when you're giving,
when you're serving, when you're helping.
Let it be done as unto the Lord. And always be accountable.
(17:16):
You know, make sure you have people in your life that will keep you accountable.
That was not cool for Ananias and Sapphira to not be able to hold each other accountable.
Like, you need to question partnerships and friendships and relationships that
let you get by with stuff that you know is not cool. Like the Holy Ghost is
telling you, wrong, wrong, daughter, no, son, no, brother.
And you're just overriding it, overriding it, hitting the snooze button like
(17:39):
I do on my phone sometimes.
So let's just be mindful about that. So I just wanted to leave that thought
with you about Ananias and Sapphira, talking about attention,
seeking spirit. Some of you may have never connected the two.
But yeah, there are actually biblical examples.
I've got plenty others. others, but that one was really heavy on my heart tonight
that they wanted the approval of man so much that they lost their life because
(18:02):
they lied to the Holy Spirit.
So let that be a lesson for each of us, a sobering reminder that whatever we
do, we do it as unto the Lord. We operate out of the spirit of integrity.
We be honest and we make sure that we're seeking God's approval above and beyond anybody else.
When God favors you, then he'll give you favor with man.
But the Bible says is trusting man is a snare.
(18:26):
Anytime you put your trust in man, you will become ensnared. Why?
Because you will always, first of all, a man's appetite is never filled.
And so the more you do for man, the more man expects, right?
So you don't ever want to put yourself to where you're trying to please people
because that appetite is never full.
They'll always want more. There will always be more. The eyes are never full.
(18:46):
So let's just be mindful about that. If we're operating in inattention-seeking behavior.
Let us be mindful of this lesson. Let us go before the Lord in prayer and ask
God to purge us and to heal us from those areas where we feel we need man's attention.
Yeah, we need to get along with people, but let's seek to serve and seek God first.
And then everything else the Bible says, you seek the kingdom and his righteousness.
(19:10):
All these other things will be added. God bless you.
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