When the Church comes to pray:

Acts 3

What had changed for them? What had changed in them

This prosketereo, worshipful devotion

Matthew 16:18 ESV

And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

But thanks be to God it is three o’clock and the Church has come to pray and by God’s grace, enter heaven.

Peter directed his gaze at him and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them

a word that does not just inform but also performs and transforms

Puzzle piece

You are spectactular, but you are also ordinary

One piece is uniquely cut, not like the others, but its real beauty and purpose is when it is properly fit in the whole picture

Jesus asked a man, pool of Bethesda

Temple gate called Beautiful Gate,

more to ripeness than to beauty

Greek, the gate (hōraios) can be defined as '1. happening or coming at the right time —2. beautiful, fair, lovely'

a man clinging to Peter and John

habitual beggar there with a congenital disability, who sought alms

Thoughts on people thinking money is what they need

a man crippled from birth was carried and placed at the gate

Who do you think carried him? God’s sovereignty?

People carry him so that he can beg.

He cannot get in on his own and no one has been able to get him beyond that gate. He is outside the Temple

Medicine cannot save us. Science cannot save us. Philosophy, education, money and power cannot help us.

the world cannot help us either. It can only carry us to the gate, but not beyond it.

koinōnia at work!

showed me how to read scripture as a source of power and healing, hope and restoration.