Acts 3 – 4
The miracle that happened was amazing. This man had been lame from birth. He had never walked but when the Lord healed him through Peter and John, he was able to leap up and immediately start walking!
The part that stood out to me the most this week was verse 8:
“He jumped to his feet and began to walk. Then he went with them into the temple courts, walking and jumping, and praising God.”
Did you notice that he entered the temple with Peter and John? He “held on to Peter and John” He followed them around and stuck close to them. He didn’t say “bye I’m off, thanks lads!” or something like that. After the miracle he experienced, he was so grateful that he wanted to find out more about God from Peter and John.
I was really challenged by this. Looking at our own situation and the things we pray for, big or small. How often do we thank or praise God after when he helps us?!
I think most of the time when we get something that we have been praying for we forget to thank and praise God for the amazing things he can do or give to us! We just move on to wanting something else.
Well, this man didn’t make that mistake. He went right into the temple with them to worship and praise God for the miracle he experienced.
This was a song we taught the kids in Sunday school last week that talks about these verses. Peter and John went to pray:
Looking on to Acts 4 verses 8-12
8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 Jesus is “‘the stone you builders rejected, which has become the cornerstone.” 12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”
Peter hands all honour back to God because he knows that he could not heal someone on his own. Peter and John had their lives changed because they came to know salvation through Jesus. They also knew that other people had to know about this too.
God has worked in our hearts faith to know and believe salvation through Jesus. That faith is so powerful that we can’t help but share what we have seen and heard because other people need to know about Jesus to.