Obedience
We meet a couple who did a generous thing by selling some property and giving a portion of the money to the church. However, in order to look good in front of their fellow church-attenders, they lied and said they had given everything to God. God struck them dead for lying.
If you are like me, you are glad God doesn鈥檛 strike everyone dead when they lie. This story shows the importance of obedience at multiple levels. These people did a good thing, but had the wrong motives and lied. They didn鈥檛 get credit for the good they did, because they mixed it with wrong motives and lies. The wrong things we do don鈥檛 get overlooked because we are also doing something good; God requires complete obedience.