I don’t have any silver or gold for you. But I’ll give you what I have. In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene, get up and walk! (Acts 3:6 NLT)
The
members of the new heavenly Israel are people who have
been delivered from self-interest into God's interest,
who have been put on their spiritual feet by Jesus Christ
and are walking in strength in the way of the Lord. Do you
not think it is a very significant thing that the first
miracle after the Day of Pentecost was the raising of an
impotent man at the gate of the temple in Jerusalem?
These are not just pretty stories put together to make an
interesting book. God knows what He is doing, and when He
makes the first miracle of the Christian era the raising
of an impotent cripple, He is saying that the people of
this new Israel are people who have been delivered from
this impotence and put on their feet spiritually.
There are a lot of Christian cripples about! They cannot get on their
own feet, nor can other people put them there. You try to pick them up!
They may take a step or two, and then down they go again. There are many
like that, and you can spend your life trying to get them up on their
feet. What is it that is eating the very life out of them? What is it
that is making them such helpless cripples that they cannot walk? It is
self-centeredness. Make no mistake about it, it is self in some form. It
is self that wants to be taken notice of. It is self in the form of
pride. This poor man was delivered because he knew his own helplessness
and he believed what Jesus said. He believed on to Jesus Christ, which
means that he believed out of himself. Yes, that is the secret – that we
shall turn from our miserable selves and cease to be occupied with them,
saying once and for all: "I am done with you, wretched self. I throw
myself on to Jesus Christ. I take the one great step of committal."
Jesus never lets such a person down.