Why are you amazed at this? God has glorified Jesus!

Acts 3 from the daily reading in the One Year Bible

Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. ² And a man who had been lame from his mother’s womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple. ³ When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. ⁴ But Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on him and said, “Look at us!” ⁵ And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. ⁶ But Peter said, “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!” ⁷ And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. ⁸ With a leap he stood upright and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. ⁹ And all the people saw him walking and praising God; ¹⁰ and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.

¹¹ While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon, full of amazement. ¹² But when Peter saw this, he replied to the people, “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? ¹³ The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus, the one whom you delivered and disowned in the presence of Pilate, when he had decided to release Him. ¹⁴ But you disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, ¹⁵ but put to death the Prince of life, the one whom God raised from the dead, a fact to which we are witnesses. ¹⁶ And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.

¹⁷ “And now, brethren, I know that you acted in ignorance, just as your rulers did also. ¹⁸ But the things which God announced beforehand by the mouth of all the prophets, that His Christ would suffer, He has thus fulfilled. ¹⁹ Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away, in order that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord; ²⁰ and that He may send Jesus, the Christ appointed for you, ²¹ whom heaven must receive until the period of restoration of all things about which God spoke by the mouth of His holy prophets from ancient time. ²² Moses said, ‘The Lord God will raise up for you a prophet like me from your brethren; to Him you shall give heed to everything He says to you. ²³ And it will be that every soul that does not heed that prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ ²⁴ And likewise, all the prophets who have spoken, from Samuel and his successors onward, also announced these days. ²⁵ It is you who are the sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’ ²⁶ For you first, God raised up His Servant and sent Him to bless you by turning every one of you from your wicked ways.”

Ephesians 3:20-21 says:  To Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.    In today’s text we see an example of God, in the name of Christ Jesus, through the power working in Peter, doing exceedingly abundantly more than a man could ask or think.       Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the ninth hour, the hour of prayer. And a man who had been lame from his mother’s womb was being carried along, whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he began asking to receive alms. But Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on him and said, “Look at us!” And he began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!” And seizing him by the right hand, he raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. With a leap he stood upright and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.     This man had been lame from the time he was born. He never knew anything else. He could not imagine being whole, so he asked only for what he thought he might receive, just enough to get by. We often ask and pray that we would have things which we have lost restored to us. Whether material things or things concerning our health, we ask that we or those things be restored to us , that we would have just enough.. God doesn’t want just to restore us to what we have known, to the best version of what we have already experienced. He wants to do exceeding abundantly beyond what we can think or ask. God, through Jesus Christ, wants to restore us not to what we have known, but to what He intended from the beginning. He wants to make us whole in a way we have never experienced nor could imagine. Genesis 1:26-28 tells us what God wants to restore us to. He said:     “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”    We were created in the image and likeness of God, to have fellowship with Him and to have dominion on earth.

If we would receive what God intends for us rather than the things we ask for, we, like the lame man, would continually praise God. If we walked in the fullness of what He wants for us, fully restored to fellowship with Him, we could not help but to continually praise Him. Every time in scripture that we are given an account of someone seeing into heaven, in the presence of God there is praise and rejoicing. Revelation 4:8 says:  day and night they do not cease to say, "HOLY, HOLY, HOLY is THE LORD GOD, THE ALMIGHTY, WHO WAS AND WHO IS AND WHO IS TO COME."       If others would see in us, what God intends for us, they would like those in today’s text be amazed and run to what God has done.    And all the people saw him walking and praising God; and they were taking note of him as being the one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to beg alms, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. While he was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the so-called portico of Solomon, full of amazement.    People will not be amazed if they see what is natural, if they see us restored to what we were. But if they see in us something that is beyond what they can think or imagine it will be an opportunity for us, like Peter to say:  “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus… And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.   Signs and wonders confirm the word of God and are also an opportunity to testify of the power in Jesus name.

Today’s text doesn’t reveal the outcome of the miracle and Peter’s testimony of Christ. Acts 4:1-4 says:   As they were speaking to the people, the priests and the captain of the temple guard and the Sadducees came up to them, being greatly disturbed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming in Jesus the resurrection from the dead. And they laid hands on them and put them in jail until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who had heard the message believed; and the number of the men came to be about five thousand.   Not everyone who sees the restoration and hears the praise and testimony of God’s goodness will rejoice for or with us. Some people will be threatened by things which are beyond what they can think or imagine. Some will deny even the evidence they see in order to hold fast to what they have known. Jesus Himself says in John 15:18-19:  “If the world hates you, you know that it has hated Me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, because of this the world hates you.”   He says:  "Then they will deliver you to tribulation, and will kill you, and you will be hated by all nations because of My name.” (Matthew 24:9)  But as in today’s text:  many of those who had heard the message believed.  Our focus should be on those who will believe.

Our glory, our hope, our joy is not to be in the things of this world. Jesus says:  “In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) Through Him, through the power of the cross, we too have overcome the world. We have been restored to what God intended for us from the beginning, to live in fellowship with Him with the unimaginable perfection of the kingdom of heaven as our testimony.

Thank You heavenly Father, Lord Jesus Christ and precious Holy Spirit. Your kingdom come, Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. May I live and walk praising You as a testimony of what You have done, through the power of the cross working in me.   Amen.