The text for this Bible walkabout is Acts 3:1-11. There we read one of the incredible stories of the Bible. The super natural sometimes goes beyond our human reasoning, and rightfully so, that is what makes it a “Miracle”! Sometimes God allows us to see his ability to do things that science cannot explain, and we see them with our eyes, but cannot reconcile with the science of things as we know them in this world. Faith helps us to realize just how awesome our God really is when we see them.
But, as we reasoned in our last study, in our minds as we read these stories, it is “Bible People” that these things happen to. I suggested that we look for the “Me” in the stories. You see, these Bible stories are like a treasure found. At first glance, they have a certain value. Just like this set of dishes we found at a yard sell. At first glance, they were unique looking dishes, there were a lot of them, and the price was really good. But as we got them home, we began to examine them, and realized, they were fine china, and there was a complete set of all the size dishes, and now they became even more valuable to us. Then, we researched them online, and found them to be a unique line of dishes, very valuable, and now, our find was even more precious. You see, the dishes never changed, but our perception of them did the more we examined them. My desire for me and you, is to take this story, and look deeper than the surface, and began to see the marvelous treasure that has always been there, searching until we see that the real treasure is not just what God has done in and for us, (as great as that is), but to realize something even greater, that “we” are ”his” treasure.
There are five subjects that I feel will be a profit to examine in this story. We will look at them in this order: 1) The Gate; 2) The Lame Man; 3) Peter and John; 4) The Gift; 5) The People.
The Gate:
Acts 3:2 And a certain man lame from his mother’s womb was carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask alms of them that entered into the temple;
We all have a “Place” in our mind. We remember the place where we first met our wife or husbands. Or, where we had our first kiss. Where we were on 9-1-1. One place that should stand out in every Christian’s memory is the place where you met the Lord Jesus. Places are very important in our memories. Before we examine the Lame Man, let’s look at the place that will forever be in his memory.
The Gate where this story takes place, was called “The Beautiful Gate” that led to Solomon’s Porch. We will not have to dig down in the old testament histories to get meaning from this. Just the name is significant to our perception of this story, It was called the “Beautiful” gate. It stands in grave contrast to this lame man. To the world, he must have been perceived as ugly, and maybe even gross. This being the temple, some tolerance must have been exercised by all those that had to pass by him as they went in the temple. Then passing him, they entered this “Place” of beauty and worship. I am willing to guess, that the gate was so named, because of the splendor and beauty it must have had at one time, when Solomon set it’s porch, and garden. None the less, it was a reminder to our Lame Man, that there was something wonderful within that gate. Something wonderful indeed.
What strikes me when reading this story, is not how long this man was lame, or how he was healed, or what it must have been like to be Peter and John, and to exercise such power in healing him. What really impresses me, is where this lame man was, and where he was not. He was within sight of something beautiful and wonderful, but he was not there. He could only imagine what was inside, but not really see it. So his perception of life was based on the “Place” where he lay, just outside of Beauty, Joy, and Peace.
There Is a place like that to the Christian. Our Lord Jesus told his disciples about it in John 14. It is a place with many mansions. The word “many” being an unidentified number, and mansions indicating that someone was living there. We read of John’s description of this place in the Revelation, that the streets are pure Gold, and so pure, it was clear as glass. Imagine that. The walls made of every sort of jewels, and a radiance proceeding from God’s throne, brighter than our sun. Light and colors, the brilliance that our feeble minds can hardly imagine. The Apostle Paul wrote, after seeing heaven, that he saw things that were unexplainable in human language. That is the place that our Lord talked about to his disciples in John’s gospel, chapter 14:1-3. He then told them this: In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. Now I know it pleases Christians to imagine Jesus, with a nail apron, and hammer and saw, and for the last two thousand years, he has been building each one of us our own mansion. But I suggest that, a view like that leaves us once again, laying at the “Beautiful” gate. It’s beauties and wonders, it’s joy and peace just inside, but we, laying outside lame and incapable of entering in and enjoying it all for ourselves. But if he is not building us a mansion, what did he mean? What he meant, was that we, that is you, and “ME”, that we didn’t have a “Place” inside this glorious gate. But he came to prepare us a Place there, to ever be with him. It was not to build us a luxurious house, that nails were used. It was to pierce his Holy hands and feet. To take the sin in my life, and yours, and pay for the penalty we deserved on the cross of Calvary.
But as many of us fail to understand what Great and Marvelous provision was made for us, What is already ours, we lay as a lame man just outside this Beautiful gate, imagining a big house full of luxurious furniture, and an abundance of great things. So then our perception of what is really ours as his children, has been molded by the things in this world we deem valuable, the silver and gold, the jewels and gadgets, the boats and cars. When what should mold our perception, and what would change our lives in this world and forever, is his Love for us, his Gift to us, and his promise to come for us, that we will ever be where he is! Heaven is ours. We just let the things of this world, and the circumstance of this life keep us from seeing it the way God wants us to see it.
There’s more… Wont you continue with me in the Bible Walkabout?
No comments:
Post a Comment