“Ananias, why has Satan filled your heart to lie to the Holy Spirit” Acts 5: 3
Today I read a commentary regarding this story of Ananias that really woke me up. It said to the effect that we treat the Lord with contempt (worthless, beneath consideration, disregard) by religious fakery. He wrote that those who feel they can lie, believe the thoughts of the heart are not serious enough to forsake but that faking faith in the presence of God should remain a fearful prospect. God is not mocked. Ananias and Sapphira wanted external religious approval. They lied to cover their covetousness and to give the impression of generosity using deception. They discredited the Holy Spirit with hypocrisy. Verse 3 says they lied to the Holy Spirit. The dishonesty covered many sins, deceiving themselves the most by doing a ‘good’ act. Instead of experiencing God’s grace they cut themselves off from it. Ananias allowed thoughts that opposed God to get a stronghold.
I appreciate more Mrs. Eddy’s use of the story of Magdalene and Simon the Pharisee to address this condition of thought at the beginning of her chapter titled Christian Science Practice. My Plainfield practitioner referred to this state of ingratitude as a disregard for God and the things of God. We must become like Magdalene to be healed by this Science of Christ.
“The sin, which one has made his bosom companion, comes back to him…” Mary Baker Eddy Science and Health, p. 569 Bosom: Embrace, implying affection; conceal, hide from view. Companion: One who keeps company with another. We are really blessed to have a church that is, “willing to expose evil’s hidden mental ways of accomplishing iniquity.” Science and Health, p.570