Gatesitter scene 6 - Power and Piety

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“...as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? (Acts 3:12) The paradigm of humanity is the craving for these elements to be the source of salvation. We want POWER – lots of power, overwhelming power to FORCE change. We want to be so powerful we can intimidate others into compliance with our beliefs or wishes. We believe power is the answer to sin and pain and dysfunction, but we don't understand the way God uses power. We want power to establish our plans. We use power in the context of fear. Even our promotion of God is usually based on fear, the wrong kind of fear induced by the lies about how He uses power. In the same vein many believe that piety is the answer and the means of salvation. This belief is far more subtle and dangerous because it appears so righteous and religious. It is picked right off the Good side of the Tree of Knowledge. It sometimes promotes itself as the more noble approach to successful religious life than power. It is viewed by some as stronger than forcing others into conformity. It is usually centered in forcing one's self into religious compliance with an endless list of expectations and achievements that must be performed to satisfy the demands of holiness. It is assumed that if enough piety is generated in the life then supernatural events will begin to occur as a result to validate their accomplishments of piety. These miracles, it is believed, will be given as acknowledgment of this person's growing proximity to the perfection of God. If a person can achieve a high enough, pure enough piety before God and men then God will begin to answer their prayers more often and will endow them with power to perform miracles so that others will recognize and acknowledge their achievement of successful piety. At this point it is believed that their piety and corresponding power will produce amazement, wonder and awe in other people that will be their witness as others focus on their accomplishments. People will appreciate and honor them for their righteousness and God will be more pleased and/or less angry with them. Because the lame – now healed man was probably very aware of this theology at least intuitively, he understandably found himself clinging to the ones who had apparently healed him. As the crowd quickly thickened and the amazement intensified he felt not only pressure from the publicity of his transformed identity but felt obligated to steer all the attention and glory away from himself to not only God but onto Peter and John. It appeared that, according to the evidence and based on religious assumptions, these men must have somehow figured out the right formula of piety to unlock the power of God. Thus the crowds were ready and eager to perform their role by heaping praise and glory on these men for their piety and accomplishments. They were also eager to find out the secret formula for themselves so they too could exercise this kind of power. Thus the situation was urgent and ripe for Peter and John to clarify what was reality and what was false assumptions about religion and God's ways. At this point they seized on the opportunity to launch into a most powerful expose´ of the truth and God's real plan for His children. It was time for people to hear the real good news.

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Gatesitter scene 5 - Focus

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He began to give them his attention, expecting to receive something from them. This is exactly what they requested of him. While it is true that he had never been presented with an opportunity to be healed before, it was equally true that he could miss this opportunity if he did not focus his attention on what was being offered him. Focus has multiple implications. Inherently focus means tuning out all other demands for attention, no matter how apparently important or urgent. Focus means actively discipling the thought and emotions to be directed at only one person or thing. Focus demands active participation and an exercise of choice, to use the “kingly” power of our will. Focus also implies an object of focus. He had probably focused many times on different things: his bitterness over being lame, his poverty, his helplessness, his parents, potential sources of income... He was likely under heavy influence of the spirit of Mammon. He was focused on doing whatever it took to try to get money so he could eek out a living. After years of fruitless attempts to better himself by focusing on different sources of help and hope for his life, he may have come to the place where he hardly cared to focus on anything anymore outside himself. Hope itself was slipping away, especially after Jesus the healer had been killed, and deep depression and hopelessness was settling into his soul like a thickening fog. Everything was now viewed through a deepening mist and there was very little reason left to even continue living. All his hopes and dreams had been swallowed up by the relentless approaching fog and he was settling into a mindless routine of just surviving to beg for one more day. So when Peter and John suddenly stopped in front of this man's lowered head and insisted that he look them straight in the eyes, it came to him like a shaft of sunlight bolting through a rift in the clouds. They asked for the one and only thing from this man that is the only thing any person genuinely owns that can be offered to another as a gift – the gift of his undivided attention. They were already giving him this gift themselves and they asked him to respond likewise. If he chose not to respond to their request because of choosing to remain in his self-pity and despondency, he would not have placed himself in the position to receive the far greater gifts they had to offer him. They did not offer him more of what he thought he needed. Instead they wanted to re-awaken the original dreams and hopes that he had now given up as unrealistic for his life. God had placed the hope for healing in his heart originally. God had inspired him to want to dance and twirl and leap for joy like some of the little children he used to observe. There had been a time in his life when he was a friend of many of the children who played around the temple area. He had listened to them and been a friend to them as they had shared their sympathy and their own hearts with him. But lately even the children didn't come around much because they found him too depressing. He was more alone than ever and wondered why God wouldn't just let him die.

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