[Monday's Devotional] - Waiting at the Beautiful Gate

I want to spend this week looking at the incident of the healing of the Lame Beggar in Acts chapter 3 and the proceeding sermon that Peter gave.  You can read the whole chapter for yourself by following the link below Acts 3.  Today I want to focus on the beggar himself.

 Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour.   And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. Acts 3: 1-2 [ESV]

Luke, the writer of Acts is referred to as being a physician (medical Dr) by Paul (Col 4:14), so it is little wonder then that Luke takes a keen interest in the medical detail of people and events.  Luke tells us that the man had been lame from birth.  Later on (in 4:22) we are told that the man was over forty years old.  So this man, who had been crippled all of his life was carried daily to his ‘pitch’ in  one of the temple gateways where he begged for money ‘alms’ from people going up to worship.

We know that Peter ministers healing to this man, but let’s just think about the life of the man, up to this point, for a minute.  The man had been laid daily at that spot for a time; it was his spot to beg from.  Each day at the hour of prayer, around 3pm, that is where you would find him.  He had almost certainly seen Jesus, probably had Jesus walk by him.  But it wasn’t Jesus who was going to bring him God’s healing. Sometimes, when our spiritual lives don’t seem to be going anywhere, we talk about being in a season of waiting.  This man was in no such place; well not knowingly anyway.  He wasn’t consciously waiting for God to act in his life.  He was simply going about his daily routine of begging for alms from the passers-by.  

This was the only way that he could make any money and stop himself being a total burden on those who faithfully carried him there each day.  But, as we will see tomorrow, God was going to meet the man in his place of hopelessness and transform his situation.

So if today, you find yourself in a comfortable, or an uncomfortable rut, with little thought of development, change or improvement, look up, look beyond the edge of the trench you are in. Be expectant that God will change things.

John Martin-Jones