Thursday, February 28, 2019
They all rushed out in amazement to Solomon’s Colonnade, where the man was holding tightly to Peter and John. Peter saw his opportunity and addressed the crowd. “People of Israel,” he said, “what is so surprising about this? And why stare at us as though we had made this man walk by our own power or godliness? For it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the God of all our ancestors—who has brought glory to his servant Jesus by doing this. This is the same Jesus whom you handed over and rejected before Pilate, despite Pilate’s decision to release him. You rejected this holy, righteous one and instead demanded the release of a murderer. You killed the author of life, but God raised him from the dead. And we are witnesses of this fact! “Through faith in the name of Jesus, this man was healed—and you know how crippled he was before. Faith in Jesus’ name has healed him before your very eyes. Acts 3:11-16(NLT)
It’s hard to admit, but I often
get blindsided by miracles. The culture
of the 60’s and 70’s, my young adult years, questioned miracles and protested everything. It’s not enough that I’m an introvert by
nature, the prevailing unrest of American life in the mid-20th
century, an outgrowth of Vietnam and the sexual revolution, climatized me to
keep my mouth shut, for fear of being lumped-in with lunatics and the
religiously-deceived. I became a
poster-boy for the old saying:
It is better
to keep your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to open it and remove all
doubt.
The major problem with this philosophy,
however, is the need to speak truth.
When you don’t speak, the truth goes impotent in you…and you get used to
it!
Peter, the impetuous disciple, was
anything but an introverted shrinking violet when it came to speaking-up. Well, except for that time outside Pilate’s
house just before the rooster announced the dawn of Peter’s shame for NOT
speaking truth. But, when the Apostle finally
found his voice again, God used it for witness all over the Kingdom.
Over the course of my life I watched
(introverts do that best…watch…from a safe distance) the rise of the Silent
Majority, dubbed-so by hyper-conservative Reverend Jerry Falwell. He was quite right on so many issues, and the
silent ones followed, supported, and watched, as the left-leaning opposition pummeled
him as obtuse and a hate-monger. Jerry’s
long-gone now, but his tribe still is a majority, albeit a fading voice in the
culture of America’s comfort with untruth.
So, what do you do when a “simple”
miracle happens right in front of you?
What if a lifelong-invalid gets out of the wheelchair and begins running
100-yard sprints around the mob of untruth?
Do you just watch in awe, questioning how in the world
that happened; wondering if it’s a trick, or if
he was pretending his illness before? I
can tell you from personal and very painfully-regretted experience, for a
disciple, keeping silent when God uses a megaphone to get his point across is
not the answer; sometimes you’ve just GOT to speak up and praise
His name!
I’m less-silent now than in my
early years. At times learning to
speak-out has been more than a little uncomfortable…but my discomfort hardly
compares to what my Lord Jesus Christ endured when he took my sin to the cross.
For You Today
The very least a disciple can do
is speak-out the truth when it’s right in front of us. Be on the lookout today for that lame man;
God may be up to something that will open your eyes…and your mouth!
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