God just used Peter and John to heal a man that was crippled since birth. The man had been sitting at that gate for years, potentially. In fact, it is not much of a stretch to say that Jesus may have walked by this guy a number of times during his ministry. But here we have these two disciples full of the Holy Spirit, and ready to live out their faith and launch the early church, and they happen upon this guy asking for money…. Again.
So as the Holy Spirit prompted him, Peter grabs the man by the hand and says, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.” No bells. No whistles. No church service. No healing ministry. Just get up and walk. The guy gets up and, in an instant, his muscles were like they have worked his whole life. He was jumping all over the temple courtyard. I can’t even walk when my leg falls asleep, and here is this dude jumping all over the place after having his legs asleep for 30 years!!!
Naturally, everyone around was amazed. They have seen this guy for years, and now all of a sudden, he is walking. A true miracle!!
But Peter says to them, “Men of Israel, why does this surprise you?” It was as if this was the normal thing to take place, and to Peter it was. Peter knew things that the other people did not, that this is commonplace with God.
But this is NOT commonplace in so many of our lives as Christians. If something were to take place similar to this story in our churches, would we just be floored? Or would we expect it? I think we need to raise our level of faith and our level of expectation, so that WHEN this type of thing happens in our life, we can just respond as Peter did.
P.S. This story happened OUTSIDE the temple. Miracles do not have to happen in the church building!!! In fact they should RARELY happen in the church building. The people of the church should be taking this to the streets and then bringing the people and the testimonies into the church!
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