This morning as I was spending time with The One who created me He pointed something out to me that stirred the passions of my heart. In the Bondage Breaker by Neil T. Anderson there is a section chuck full of scripture with which Anderson is trying to get a point across. One of the last passages was a story of two people called Ananias and Sapphira.
The church at this time was being persecuted by a guy named Saul (who would later become a Christ Follower). However, the church was thriving to spite the persecution. People where selling their land, homes, anything to further the kingdom of God (Acts 4:22-36). People were giving selflessly so that others could be blessed. The church movement was growing and God was moving in people lives.
Ananias and Sapphira were one of the many couples who sold their land to give money to the church movement however, they held back some of the money for themselves thinking that no one would know. Now there is nothing wrong with keeping some of the money, after all it was their land. However, they had told the church that they had given it all. God saw their hearts and struck both of them dead in front of the church.
Now death to me seems a bit harsh, but according to the bible they lied to God.
As I continued to ponder over how this scripture could possibly apply to me today I realized that the early church had something unprecedented going on here. The world would have told them they were crazy, and they were crazy, but in a good way. They gave as anyone had need. They shared everything, held nothing back as their own. Everything was God’s and they lived as if everything was God’s. People where selling land for crying out loud. That’s crazy talk. Selling your land to give the proceeds to the church, who does that? As I continued to roll this heavy peace of scripture around in my brain I began to long for a community like this where everyone gave as anyone needed and where people where going crazy to sell anything and everything to fund the movement of the church.
What would happen if the church today would grasp this biblical concept of God’s ownership? What if the church today went hog-wild and sold their lands, cars, homes, toys, to fund the movement of God’s church? I look around the community that I live in and I see churches that are barely making ends meet. I see my own church barely making ends meet and yet we as Christ followers simply stand by as our preverbal ship sinks to the bottom of the ocean. Yet I see good hearted citizens giving thousands even millions of dollars to fund a candidate running for state Governor and they don’t even know if this candidate will win. We as Christ followers know how our story ends, we know we win, and we are still hanging onto the sides of the ship hoping that some how God is going to save our churches from falling apart. God has put us here, “the Church” to further his kingdom, but we need our faith community in order to do this effectively. Without the financial resources to keep our churches running our communities will fall apart, we will sink. God wants us to pull together to give as anyone has need to further His kingdom.
In my heart I feel an awakening brewing right underneath the surface of the faith community that I am apart of, Imagine This LLC. I feel the spiritual muscles of our faith community flexing as we brace ourselves to either go down with the ship or to start passing out buckets to start giving toward the movement of God.
There are many ways that we can give to the movement of God, not just monetarily but, with our time, serving the faith community. Rolling up our shirt sleeves and getting our hands dirty. I know in my faith community we need people all over the place. We need people in the kid’s ministry, café, the tech booth, cleaners, greeters, and youth workers, and the list could go on and on. The kingdom of God is at stake!! The ship is going down, and the waves are getting higher. We need to have an uprising of people to stand up and say that “we are willing to jump into the trenches, to start bailing water out of the boat, to give everything we are to see the movement of God go farther.” These are the people we need today in the church and I know that they are there. The movement will not fail, not if we all start giving everything we have to the movement of our God!!
