Praise the Lord RC family. Please continue to pray for Glynis and me, and we promise to continue to pray for you.
I understand that many people reading this ConnectPoint may not trust the things I say or write. Still, I found myself sitting at my desk today just thinking about how much I love and appreciate you (members of RC) and how I can be more of a blessing to you and your family.
Glynis and I really, sincerely care about you, and we want God's best for you. Our only desire for you is good and never evil. We want to see you walking in financial freedom and God's abundance. We want above all else to see you in good health and your soul prospering.
In the last ConnectPoint, I ended it with a question. The question was - Did God do something terrible to Ananias and Sapphira, or did they cause their own deaths? If you're not sure what I'm talking about, go back and read last week's ConnectPoint, as well as read the story in Acts 5:3-10.
The answer to the question is simple, God didn't kill Ananias and Sapphira. However, because they violated a timeless spiritual principle when they lied to the Holy Ghost, their actions exposed them to the penalty of sin.
Family, it was their willful violation of God's established timeless principle that brought about their deaths. Read the account as carefully as you can, and you will find that God took no specific action against either of them. They simply collected what they sowed. The Bible is clear that the wages of sin are death.
Every believer reading this will quickly agree that lying to the Holy Ghost is a sin! We also know the penalty for sin is death. God has clearly stated this principle in both the Old and New Testaments. Liars who refuse to repent and receive forgiveness are sinners, and sinners die. Ananias and Sapphira lied, and true to God's Word, they died.
Please keep in mind that the Bible does not give a set amount of time to pass after a person commits a sin before its penalty takes effect. It may take fifty years, fifty days, or fifty minutes. Or as it was in the case of Ananias and Sapphira, it took less than 50 seconds for the penalty of sin to become their portion.
When we understand the consequences of sin, it becomes easy to see that God did not curse Ananias and Sapphira. It was their own willful violation of a God-ordained principle that brought the penalty of death upon them. Notice God's Word doesn't change!
The violation of any God-ordained timeless principle always brings the promised penalty. This truth is parallel in the natural realm. For instance, as long as you obey the established timeless principles of aerodynamics, you can safely fly through the sky.
However, if you violate these timeless principles, you will stop flying and crash. If you break a timeless principle that carries with it the penalty of death, you will die. If you obey God's timeless principles, you will live. God doesn't crash airplanes or kill liars. It is the violation of established timeless principles that bring about these disastrous results.
Some of you may stop reading when you see the next verse but according to Malachi 3:9, not putting God first in our finances carries a preordained penalty. It says, "Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation." Ouch, I'm glad I didn't write that.
Family, when God says you are cursed with a curse, He is speaking of the consequence of willfully violating His established timeless principles of tithing. Now I am not saying that you will die if you don't tithe, but I am saying that when we refuse to put God first in our finances, He simply closes heaven over us, and the promised blessings come to an end.
So the decision is ours to make. Are we going to trust God and His Word, or are we going to do what we want to do? I don't know about you, but I, David Winston Burton, need to live under an open heaven, so I choose to follow God's TIMELESS principle and give whatever He asks of me in every area of my life. I realize family that I am not the owner of anything, but I want to be a faithful servant. What about YOU???
TO BE CONTINUED NEXT WEEK…
