Acts 3 – 4

Verse 3:6 begs the question, why not today:

 I want to give you something, but I don’t have any silver or gold. Here’s what I can offer you: stand up and walk in the name of Jesus of Nazareth, the Anointed One.

I so want to try this, but I fear failure and the pain it may inflict on the crippled person so I remain quite. This is something where faith and fear collide big time. If we really had faith in Jesus allowing us to “do greater things” this should be a no brainer. How often have we seen faith healers fake it on TV or have someone’s hopes crushed when the “power of Jesus” doesn’t bring them out of their chair? I can’t say if I would ever try this because of fear, even though my faith is strong … it doesn’t make sense why we believe the Bible, but will not DO the Bible. As you may tell this is something I struggle with daily, even the morning after a huge blessing!!

Verse 3:25 once again ties in OT teachings to show Jesus:

You are the descendants of these prophets, and you are the people of God’s covenant to your ancestors. God’s word to Abraham includes you: “Because of your descendants, all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

Genesis 22:18 and 26:4 both talk about this blessing to the world and not just Israel. This is the power of Jesus that it’s not a birthright but rather a gift to all. We don’t have to be born into the faith, but anyone can gain this blessing by just asking. We tend to complicate this too much but the bread crumbs are all over the Bible, we just need to follow them to Jesus.

Verse 4:11 should sound familiar from previous readings:

He is “the stone that you builders rejected who has become the very stone that holds together the entire foundation” on which a new temple is being built.

Psalm 118:22 is another bread crumb that links the OT writings to Jesus. I am sure they were not aware of the prophecy they were writing. They were expecting a warrior, yet they rejected Him and fulfilled these writings. They expected the rejection to be outside Israel and not from within. So Rome would have rejected the Messiah, not themselves. This is the power of hindsight, but also helping with the power of foresight.

Follow me here, Jesus is expected to return with much the same bravado that was expected in His first appearance on earth. Because of this don’t reject Him the second time!! Expect the unexpected and don’t think inside the box the church made or you may miss the joy of experiencing Him a second time.