Happy Wednesday folks! Margie and I had a great day yesterday as we continue to adjust to the new schedule God has given us. We had a special treat yesterday afternoon as Margie’s parents came out for a visit and guess what? Well, it WAS Tuesday so why not celebrate Taco Tuesday! MMM…tacos! What a great gift we have in our family. Ben and Cyndi are such a treasure and we count ourselves so fortunate to have loving, caring, supportive parents that love the Lord.
I want to start out this morning with a side note about prayer. I took a hermeneutics class in Hawaii and my instructor that was a Pastor gave me some invaluable advice. He said, “you are praying that the Holy Spirit reveal His Word to you before reading aren’t you?” Well my answer at that time was no. It had never really occurred to me. I started immediately and it changed everything. Through this process I realized I needed God to understand God. Think about that carefully. YOU NEED GOD TO UNDERSTAND GOD. On our own we can never hope to fully understand the goodness and full extent of God, His Word and His plan. Pray for Him to open your heart as you read His Word today and He will respond.
I think one of the biggest under-utilized tools of the Christian today is prayer. We pray once a week, once a day or once before meals and that’s it. We are told to pray without ceasing (1 Thess 5:16) and that’s what God wants. Pray for others, pray for your Pastors, pray for the sick, pray for God’s Kingdom to be expanded, pray for widows, pray for your kids, pray for healing, pray to know God better, pray for our leaders, pray for missionaries, pray for wisdom, pray for your enemies, pray for your spouse, pray for your mean boss, pray for your parents, pray for our military, pray for protection from the evil one, pray for our teachers, pray for the lost, pray to comprehend the love of Christ. Pray FOR everything and pray ABOUT everything. God has asked us to pray and He is waiting and listening for these prayers. Use the power of prayer today to change your world.
This morning is chapter 3 of Acts. We start out with Peter and John going to the temple for evening prayer. Peter and John encounter a man at the temple gate that had been lame since birth. His daily routine was to be brought to this particular gate where he would beg for money. The name of the gate? Beautiful. Notice the juxtaposition here. A gate named Beautiful that leads to God’s presence, His temple. The man, a sinner by birth, imperfect before God. Also, his physical presence was imperfect, his legs were lame since birth and were probably deformed, gnarled and could not carry him. The imperfect just outside the gate to God. A sinner just a few feet from God but unable to make the connection. What a picture of our world today.
Peter and John lock eyes with the guy and say, “Look at us.” The beggar was hoping for money, but Peter’s powerful response could only come from God. “I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise and walk!” What a statement. All you will ever need you have if you believe in Jesus as your savior. You have God, you have God’s Word and you have the Holy Spirit living inside you. My friend, you are equipped. Peter and John didn’t have any money, a car, a huge house, or a big 401-k, but what they had was better than all the silver and gold that has ever existed. They were full of the Holy Spirit, had a calling from God and had a passion to complete God’s mission. What a lesson for us today and our priorities.
Now here comes my favorite part and I thank Luke for being so specific and including great details like this. Acts 3:8, “and leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” In the English language this is but one sentence. Verbs, adjectives, subjects and punctuation. But in God’s language this sentence says everything. Lets start by looking at his posture, leaping.
It says the word leaping twice. If God says it once it’s super important, if He says it twice in close proximity its super-duper important. Now remember, this guy had never walked before. I can only imagine the hours, days, months and years he had spent dreaming, if he would ever be allowed the joy of walking on his own 2 legs. When God heals him, he is so overjoyed he doesn’t carefully and cautiously try out his new legs, he leaps up! He is ‘all in’ using the new gift he has been given. Then he leaps all the way into the temple with them praising God. Careful not to miss that…into the temple. He goes from lame to healed, from apart from God to close to God. The temple was always there but today it’s different. Today he goes in. Today He met God.
The leaping fascinates me. I’m trying to think of a time in my life where I leaped with joy. I’m trying to think of a time in my life where I’ve seen others leap with joy. It seems to me I can only recall leaping when people win something really big. When guys win the Super Bowl they leap with joy. When a gal wins a gold medal in the Olympics she leaps with joy. When a guy wins the Masters in golf he leaps with joy. This lame beggar was leaping with joy, he had won something really big that day!
Also notice that as he was leaping and skipping his way into the temple with Peter and John that he was praising God and people were seeing it. (Acts 3:8) “And all the people saw him walking and praising God.” (Acts 3:9) What a picture, I can just imagine Peter, this big strong fisherman, walking next to this guy skipping and singing and saying, “hey dude, tone it down a bit, huh?” ha! What a difference in this guy. From a lame, beggar to leaping and singing to God. When we meet God things change. Our heart is now different. The Holy Spirit moves in and changes the very essence of who we are. We are born again, we are now His. “He was leaping and praising God.”
So the temple was very busy being Pentecost, as was God’s plan, and as a result alot of people saw this miracle. And then it begins, the human element, we overthink. Do I understand what I just saw? Acts 3:10, “And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.” Wonder and amazement. When we can’t understand what our eyes are seeing we are amazed and wonder why we can’t fully understand it. Just one chapter back in Acts 2:12, the people were “amazed and perplexed” when the Holy Spirit empowered the disciples to speak all the languages and dialects of Rome. This time the people could not believe their ears. God is telling us here, you cannot fully understand me by just using your eyes and your ears. If you rely just on these 2 human senses, you will live your life ‘perplexed.’ You have to believe in me with with your heart. God doesn’t ask for our understanding, He asks for our belief. Proverbs 3:5, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.”
Again, God’s plan is perfect, He has just performed a miracle in front of a huge crowd and for the second chapter in row He uses Peter to preach a powerful message. Not a message on success, or personal enrichment or ‘loving your life today’ but a message on the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Every sermon preached should include the resurrection of Jesus. In Acts 2:41b that we covered yesterday it tells us that 3,000 souls came to know Jesus. After Peter’s sermon today Acts 4:4 tells us that about 5,000 men came to know Jesus. God is moving mightily here in Jerusalem just as He said He would. Remember when we talked in Acts 1:8 “you will receive all my power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, Samaria and all the end of the Earth?” This is the first place in that list, Jerusalem. God is fulfilling what Jesus had told them only a few days ago before His ascension. When God moves, He moves big. 8,000 people saved in 2 days in Jerusalem.
I hope that today you are not cautiously walking in the Lord but leaping in the Lord. If you are a child of God you have everything you need to celebrate today and leap for joy! Bless others today by allowing them a glimpse of your joyful leaping. They might be perplexed or they might just cast off their own understanding and believe. God is still in the miracle business, one soul at a time.
God’s blessings on your day.
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