< Acts 3 >

The apostles, endowed with God’s power, were able to perform the most extraordinary miracles to demonstrate their message was from the Lord. They immediately healed a man lame from birth who was a familiar sight, begging at the gate of the temple. He sought alms from Peter and John but Peter gave him something much better. Then, as Peter lifted him up with his right hand, his feet and ankle bones were strengthened. Up to that moment he had never walked. No wonder he then leaped up and went “with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God”!

This spectacle of the lame man being healed excited the multitudes attending worship in the temple, enabling Peter to tell them that the healing was by God’s power in the name of Jesus, the one whom they had pressured the Roman governor into crucifying. Remarkably, they had killed the Prince of life and desired the release of a destroyer of life. But all this was in accordance with God’s purpose, as was also Jesus’ resurrection from the dead, for “those things, which God before had shewed by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled”.v.18Waiting for response for Acts 3:18 This was a vital lesson for them to learn, and for us today, that God had declared beforehand in the Scriptures the life and work of his Son through whose suffering, death and resurrection mankind will be saved.

Future events are detailed in the Old Testament; events which we can anticipate being fulfilled exactly as God has spoken. Therefore Peter exhorted them to reform their lives so they will benefit when the Lord Jesus Christ returns from heaven to restore the kingdom to Israel and to forgive the sins of his people, giving them eternal life.

The good news [gospel] is that in Abraham’s seed (Jesus Christ) “shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed”. God’s offer of inheriting the promises and being blessed in Abraham and Christ has been extended to all nationalities, but the offer was first made to God’s own people of Israel, Abraham’s natural descendants v.26.Waiting for response for Acts 3:26 The opportunity, however, would not be confined to them but would soon be extended to the Gentiles, and it is now available to everyone so that any of us may repent and be converted that our sins may be blotted out and that we may receive the promised blessings in the times of refreshing when Jesus returns from heaven.