The Lord is awe-inspiring, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him in Acts 3:12-16,
“Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you stare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? … It is Jesus' name and the faith that comes through him that has given this complete healing to him, as you can all see.”
When the Lord healed a crippled beggar through Peter and John a crowd gathered. In addressing the surprise of the people Peter corrects an assumption the crowd was apparently taken by: the healing did not take place because of Peter and John’s own power or godliness.
In some circles of the church there is the feeling that it is only when we arrive at a certain “godliness” or a certain maturity that God can begin to work through us. Indeed, there are those today who engage in what I would consider to be questionable practices and wear these on their sleeves as an authentication that they have arrived at a level of “godliness”. Their way is the way to go because, after all, God is placing his stamp of approval on their ministry because of what they are capable of doing - what others are not or cannot.
But that is not what I see in this episode. Here we have two apostles, who, between them, authored seven of our twenty seven New Testament books. They lived, ate, served and were taught by the Lord himself during his earthly ministry. Now empowered by the promised Holy Spirit as two of twelve apostles, if anyone had claim to godliness or power it would be these men. But in this account they clearly state that the miraculous healing the Lord provided through them had nothing to do whatever with “godliness” or power they might have had.
I suspect many of us today have forgotten Paul’s words, “God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him.” 1 Corinthians 1:27-29. I can say that the Lord has touched my life in very important ways at times through folks who have only been saved for just a few months or others who have never been considered to be the “spiritual elite” of the congregation. All of us, no matter our tenure in the church, our position in the church or our perceived status are capable and probably used more in the lives of others around us, than we will ever know. This is just the way our wonderful Lord works!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your theme of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We’d love to hear from you!
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