Looking the Right Direction

February 11

(Acts 3:4-5 NIV) "Peter looked straight at him, as did John. Then Peter said, "Look at us!" {5} So the man gave them his attention, expecting to get something from them."

(Matthew 6:22-23 NIV) "The eye is the lamp of the body. If your eyes are good, your whole body will be full of light. {23} But if your eyes are bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness!"

(Psalms 121:1-2 NIV) "I lift up my eyes to the hills-- where does my help come from? {2} My help comes from the Lord, the Maker of heaven and earth."

At an early age, infants learn to look into our eyes for information and intimacy. Something spiritual happens when we look people in the eye. So it was with the beggar at the gate. Conditioned by years of shame, he kept his head down and didn’t look up. It was safer for his soul not to make eye contact. His posture portrayed weakness, defeat, and humiliation. But Peter demanded eye contact, because he knew that God wanted to heal more than just this man’s body. Peter and John could have given him a small coin and felt good for helping the poor like many Christians do today. But they wanted to give him more than that. They wanted to give him his life back. They wanted God to heal his soul. So the man looked up and his life was never the same… because when he looked into their eyes, he was looking into the eyes of Christ. The first step to healing is looking up. -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day

Asking for the Right Stuff

February 10

(Acts 3:3 NIV) "When he saw Peter and John about to enter, he asked them for money."

(James 4:1-4 NIV) "What causes fights and quarrels among you? Don't they come from your desires that battle within you? {2} You want something but don't get it. You kill and covet, but you cannot have what you want. You quarrel and fight. You do not have, because you do not ask God. {3} When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. {4} You adulterous people, don't you know that friendship with the world is hatred toward God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God."

When Peter and John approached the Temple gate, a beggar, crippled since birth, asked them for money. He was asking for the wrong thing. He asked for money, but what he really needed was healing. It’s hard to blame him -- it’s an old attitude. Most of us have been conditioned to believe that more money will fix our problems and make us happy -- so even today, many of us are still asking God for the wrong stuff. We ask Him for money, when what we really need is healing -- physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. We plead for pennies, when God has millions to give. We sit begging at the gate of glory, when we could be walking free with Jesus. We wallow in self pity, when the confidence of Christ is ours for the asking. We spend our days asking God just to get by, when what He wants to do is miraculously amaze the world through us. Are you asking God for the right stuff? -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day

Crippled from Birth

February 9

(Acts 3:2 NIV) "Now a man crippled from birth was being carried to the temple gate called Beautiful, where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts."

(Psalms 51:5 NIV) "Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me."

(Job 15:14 NIV) "What is man, that he could be pure, or one born of woman, that he could be righteous?"

(Isaiah 53:6 NIV) "We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all."

Imagine being totally dependent upon others for survival. This needy man, “crippled from birth”, had to be carried to the Temple gate so that he could beg for survival. In a way, this helpless beggar represents us all, for we have all been “crippled from birth” by sin. Sin takes our legs out from under us, and we join those begging at the gate of God, unable to enter on our own. We end up looking to people, instead of God, for our sustenance. We spend our lives in spiritual squalor, sitting in our sin, pleading for the crumbs that the world occasionally gives us. We desperately need the Lord, but continually beg others to give us what we think we need. We plead for handouts instead of healing. We become focused on survival instead of seeking salvation. But we can be changed. We can be born again if we trust the Great Physician. Why beg another day? Take God’s hand and rise up. -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day   

A Praying Church

February 8

(Acts 3:1 NIV) "One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the time of prayer -- at three in the afternoon."

(1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 NIV) "Be joyful always; {17} pray continually; {18} give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus."

(Hebrews 13:15-16 NIV) "Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name. {16} And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased."

Peter and John were going to a prayer meeting at three o’clock in the afternoon. The desire of the early church was to be God-dependent, not self-sufficient. They prayed continually. Today’s culture worships at the altar of self-sufficiency. This hinders our desire to pray continually. We can obtain much of what we need without asking God for it -- no need for “daily bread” prayers. The majority of our prayers express a desire for personal blessing, rather than the desire to bring glory to God. Trusting God for all things, and in all things, is what set the early Christians apart. When they prayed, they prayed big and wide. They prayed for God to be glorified in their lives, even if it meant persecution. They just wanted more of God. When we begin to pray for God to be glorified in our lives, God will involve us in the miraculous, and give us opportunities to amaze the world, just like He did with the early church. -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day