Day 90: Promise to The Lord

Acts 5:1-16; Deuteronomy 23-24; Job 15

The sick were healed, those with evil spirits were relieved, and many people believed.  The power of the apostles at this time was incredible. Such things are still happening today, but I wonder why I never believed it until my brother, Bryan, talked about it?  I guess the Bible, even the New Testament, seems so long ago, so distance and different.  What is even more amazing is that from 12 men, the whole world is learning about Jesus.  I’m sitting here today because of their witness—that is so cool.

One of the things that these passages talk about is promises to God.  Just like Ananias and Sapphira promised to give what they had to the Lord and in the Deuteronomy passages it talks about making promises, be careful!  If you promise God something, he will hold you to it.  The reality is, as humans, we fail a lot.  We can be so wishy-washy, oscillating between zealous devotion and apathy.  Following Christ will be hard and we need to work at it daily, but making promises to the Lord is a sure-fire way to set ourselves up for failure.  Does that mean that we should never make promises to God?  Of course not.  If God is calling a person to commit to something and promise that they will be or do or carry out something, then they need to fulfill that, but realize that keeping that promise will be one of the hardest things they do.

As a believer, it is so important to care for the poor.  It is amazing just how much scripture talks about the poor.  God doesn’t want us to cheat one another, to hold back generosity because someone can’t pay us back, to be so greedy that we refuse to leave some for those less fortunate.  If everything we have is on loan from God anyway, how can I say that it is “mine” to keep?  I might as well bless others the way that God has blessed me.  Sometimes I complain about not having enough money, but here I am sitting at my nice computer, with a warm cup of Starbucks coffee beside me, and cozy slippers on my feet.  I have so much.  I pray that the Lord would give us opportunities to serve the poor, the orphans, the widows, and that we would be brave enough to take those opportunities.

I think one of the things that Eliphaz gets right in this passage is what it is like for those who live a life of sin against God.  They probably live with fear, deep down in their souls; darkness and despair are in their minds and hearts; their lives are in ruins.  The truth is, a life apart from the Lord is meaningless and destructive.  Anything that is not of God is sin, and sin destroys.  Whatever sins are in our lives, we need to flee from them and leave them behind.  Even the “small” stuff allows Satan and crack through which he can creep in.