Acts Study continued

 

In Acts 3, some Apostles go to the Temple and enter through the gate called "Beautiful". There, they encounter a man crippled from birth. Oh what a relevant prophetic picture for us today! Hear me you Apostles! For you too will encounter many with "crippled faith" from birth, in today's "temples" we call "churches". Many have never been able to walk with God because they've never encountered real faith, only the pseudo faith religious churches practice. They have a form of godliness but they deny and resist God's power, His very presence, in their midst. But, though the crippled man had never encountered God by sitting outside man's temple, he did encounter Him when he came near to God's temple, the Apostles. 

They met the crippled man rather late in the day, around 3 in the afternoon. Many "crippled saints" today will encounter God's Apostles rather late in their lives. Though they may have lain in their pews all their spiritual lives, they will encounter men and women with real faith and they will "rise, take up their bed, and walk" (they must take their bed with them so no one else can use it and as a testimony - i used to be just like you, sitting around in my pew all the time, now look at me!). It's never too late to have a life changing,  powerful encounter with Jesus! Healing is the inheritance of all God's children no matter how long they've gone without it. If, they answer "yes" to the question- "Will YOU be made whole?"

The Apostles went to the Temple, the place where men continued to meet together,  without God's presence ( remember? He tore the vail and departed?) They kept meeting in the Temple as if nothing had happened. "Oh that vail that used to be there? Ummmm...pay no attention to the fact it's gone now. We'll have it sewed and repaired and back up before you know it! Uh...took it for cleaning, that's it! Just having it cleaned! They kept reading the Word as they always did, no one noticed God had departed from them because He wasn't the focus of their meetings, the religion they created about Him was the focus. But in His mercy, God returned to the Temple in the Apostles,  because His crippled people were there and He still wanted to touch and heal them. The Apostles went to the Temple for the same reason Jesus did - to preach the Gospel to the poor, to open blind eyes, to heal the crippled and the maimed, to bind up the broken hearted. They went to bring them out of the Temple built by man to the Temple God was busy building, that met "house to house". The Apostles were showing by example God wants to meet with us daily, not just once a week and holidays.  

The crippled man was not looking for healing. Remember,  he had no faith, so he wasn't expecting it at all. Meeting people with no faith entering and leaving the Temple, all his life, had taught him to look for money, not healing. He had never encountered or seen a miracle, why should this day be any different? He learned God is a powerful God, healing the sick, raising the dead, mightily delivering His people from evil within and without, in the pages of the Holy Book, but not in his day. After all, God hadn't done a thing for 400 years. Not even a word (until that weirdo John showed up). Like the man at the pool of Bethesda,  he needed man to carry him everywhere and care for him. He was completely dependent on man, exactly like today's churches. Most saints cannot function or do much of anything without their pastor. But though he was looking for money, he encountered God....and the precious faith the Apostle's had was far more valuable than gold or silver, of which Peter had none. What Peter did have was faith, the kind of faith that can only come by spending time with, first Jesus,  then the Holy Spirit.  This, then, is God's purpose for raising up and sending forth Apostles and Prophets today - so God's people can encounter Him and be raised (some from the dead) up to walk and talk with Him as Adam did in the Garden.