Day 8: Living with Certainty- It's Never Private! ! (Acts 3:1-26)
Today’s Passage: Acts 3:1-26
“Tell us what you really think!” When people respond to me with that phrase, I know that I have perhaps, just a bit, pushed my point too far.
I was with a good friend traveling, and we were wiped-out, which means my internal filter was pretty much turned off. After I heard the words come out of my mouth, I apologized. I was giving my opinion about something I was quite certain about.
What do you look like when you are certain, really certain, you have the answer?
For me, it can often look like arrogance. It doesn’t have to be.
In various ways, we are pictures that people look at, and when they look, the can see what we put our certainty in.
One of those other pictures is found today in our reading. Peter and John are very confident. Not in themselves, but in Jesus. Their confidence is on full display when they command the man, “Look at us!” And he did and was healed.
People are amazed, and Peter asks, “Why do you wonder at this…” He traces what has taken place back to Jesus? No, back to Abraham; to Yahweh. He then brings it all the way forward to Jesus, this Author of Life that they killed (v.15).
Talk about direct! Get used to it. Peter, Stephen, Paul, and the others know that people’s eternal lives depend on whether or not they know Jesus. Peter, Stephen, Paul, are certain about it.
Yes, they are full of the Holy Spirit. And yes, you and I probably “live with the certainty of Jesus” in a different way. Yet I imagine they would never buy into a posture of “faith should be a private”.
Their “certainty” is the Person of Jesus. They do not want to hold onto him. They want to give him away. “What I do have, I give you…” we hear Peter say. The miraculous healing opens the door for testimony about Jesus, which leads to the ultimate healing—the healing of estrangement from God.
Let’s just read that again. The ultimate healing a person can experience, is the healing of their estrangement from God.