As most people are aware, almost every four years there is an extra day in February because of leap year. This is because the Earth does not orbit around the Sun in exactly 365 days. However, adding an extra day every four years creates three extra days every 400 years. To correct this problem, every year that is divisible by 100 but not divisible by four is not a leap year. This may seem a little confusing, but there is story in the Bible of a lame man being healed, and there is no confusion about how it happened.
“Words from Above” in Acts 3 tell us that two disciples of Jesus, Peter and John, went to the Temple to pray one day at noon. They met a man lame from the time he was born. Friends had carried him there and laid him at a gate into the Temple so he could ask for donations from people as they entered the Temple. When he saw Peter and John, he asked them for money, but Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none, but what I have I will give you.”
Peter then said to him, “In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” This certainly is not what the man expected to hear, since he had never walked in his entire life. Peter then took him by the hand and helped him to get up, and immediately the man’s feet and ankles received strength. He leaped to his feet and walked with Peter and John into the Temple, “walking, leaping, and praising God.”
People who knew he had begged for money at the Temple were really amazed at what happened to the man, and Peter explained that it was not his power that had made him walk, but it was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob who had healed the lame man.
The next day, members of the Jewish religious council asked Peter by what power or by what name had he healed the lame man. Peter relied by saying, “Let it be known to you all, and to the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead, by Him this man stands here before you whole.” Peter also told them, “there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
We may not have ever been lame, and especially not from the time of our birth, but God can lift us up from whatever condition we may have, and He can give us reason to leap for joy.
Larry R. Steffee is pastor of the Center Hill Brethren In Christ Church on Miller Road in Smithville. Everyone is welcome to attend. For informa-tion, you may email lrsteffeetn@yahoo.com.
