Lessons From the Gatesitter

He sat every day at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful. How very many of us also sit every day in the presence of the Beauty of God while spending most all of our time focusing on our selves, our crippled condition, our needs and desiring pity from those around us who enter on into His glory. We see ourselves as cripples, unworthy and unable to go to God. We are content to resign ourselves to sitting outside the gate of beauty and just beg for dropping crumbs from the rich blessings others receive from Him. We live off a pitance of the blessings of others. We may be sometimes even jealous of their freedom and gladness but believe it cannot be ours to experience. We need a Peter and John to come to us and demand our undivided attention to pry our focus away from our impossibilities to God's boundless desires for us. The lame man was living and asking for money to provide an existence for himself. He was content, though not satisfied, to eek out a bleak existence on the leftovers from others. But God had much greater plans for his life. Peter and John did not offer him more of the same. He thought that money was his need. But they wanted to break his dependence on thinking money would solve his problems to realize God's real passion for his heart. God wanted his life to glorify His Son Jesus. God's heart wanted him to run, to dance, to celebrate wildly in the presence of God's goodness. God wanted him to trust in Jesus for satisfaction instead of depending on his begging. God wanted to make him a spectacle of amazement and wonder beyond his own wildest dreams. God desired to jolt the whole city into a new picture of reality, a reality of God's true desires that He wanted everyone to accept and experience in their own lives. This experience of God's reality was already being enjoyed by thousands of animated, excited believers. But God's heart yearns to draw everyone into His powerful embrace of love. Reality ws breaking out of the fictional world of rigid religion and anything was now possible if people would just believe in God's goodness and His salvation. He wanted to pour down blessings like heavy rain if only people would just choose to believe – if we will just choose to believe.