THE SECRET TO A BEAUTIFUL LIFE (Acts 3:1-21)

THE SECRET TO A BEAUTIFUL LIFE (Acts 3:1-21)

Today’s message is about the miracle of the healing of a man that had been crippled from his birth.  When this man was born, and his father and mother took him and examined him, they noticed that something was not quite right with the little baby’s feet: his anklebones had not developed, nor his little feet. Somehow, they were not made whole, like feet should normally be for a little baby. 

And this little boy never learned to walk. When other boys would go out to skip, run, and play, he couldn’t. Later on, when other men went to work, there was no work that he could do. All that they could do was to take this man every day and put him down there at the gate to the temple, the gate that was called Beautiful. He had his little tin cup there, and as people would come and go to worship, he would cry out, “Baksheesh! Baksheesh! Alms! Help the poor! Help the poor!” And people would drop their pennies and their coins into his tin cup. Day after day, that is the way he lived. People would come and go, and he was right there at the gate of the temple.  And here is this man just outside that Beautiful Gate, because he cannot enter through it.  That is because Levitical law said that a deformed man could not enter past that gate.  So, here he was, on the wrong side of a beautiful life. He is just outside the gate, and he’s crippled.

Now, if you want a beautiful life, then I want you to picture yourself on the wrong side of the gate. Picture yourself, spiritually, as a cripple—unable to walk the walk of God, unable to work the work of God, unable to enter into the worship of God—on the wrong side of the gate. Picture a new life. Picture a gate gloriously beautiful.  Picture yourself on the wrong side of that gate, and you can’t enter in without a miracle. I want you to picture the Lord Jesus Christ who was in Simon Peter that day. I want you to picture Him coming by you today and looking down at you, and I want you to picture today Jesus reaching down to you with a nail-pierced hand, taking you by your right hand, raising you up, spiritually giving you a lift that will last, and giving to you the power to enter in through the gate to the ports of God.  That is what this miracle is all about. God wants to give you a new life, today. He wants to make something beautiful of your life. 

Click on the play button to hear a message on the secret to a beautiful life.

This is a live recording of The Master’s Class Bible Study at LifeChange Church Wichita, KS.

Amen.