Acts 3:12-19 (NRSV)
Read Acts 3:12-19 on biblegateway.com
Verse 12When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, "You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? Verse 13The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. Verse 14But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, Verse 15and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. Verse 16And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you. Verse 17"And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. Verse 18In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Verse 19Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out,
Devotion
Sometimes, God works close to home—very close to home. Just as Jesus often healed one of the community's own, so in the third chapter of Acts, Peter and John heal the well-known beggar at the temple gate in Jerusalem.
God's insistence on showing power, in places too close for comfort, is deeply subversive: It is just plain hard to reject a miracle you walk by every day.
As Peter says to the astonished crowd: "It is the one you know whom we healed in Jesus' name." "This one you know is a witness to God's power." "Once, you rejected Christ Jesus." "But this miracle of healing will break your hearts of stone. You will believe and your lives will return to God."
So it is for us. The power of the risen Christ works close to home, very close to home. We see, we believe and our lives return to God.
Prayer
O Lord, grant us the grace to see those miracles of God's power right in front of our eyes. As we live beside them each day, may their witness draw us ever deeper into belief. Amen.