Prayer and Action?

“Then Peter said, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." Taking him by the right hand, he helped him up, and instantly the man's feet and ankles became strong.” Acts 3: 6-7



Over the last week I cannot tell you how many times I have read the above verses. As I read the story of how Peter heals the cripple I have become fascinated with how the story plays out. As many of us already know prayer is a very powerful resource that we have and is something that we should spend as much time as possible doing. The part of this story that I have come to enjoy and be so convicted over though is the part after Peter prays for the beggar. It is in verse seven that I have become so lit up about. Peter takes him by the right hand and helps him up. I do believe that we can pray for a person in some far of land and it will be effective, however I believe that if that is the only thing we are doing we have missed out on seeing that very thing Peter sees here. Besides the blessing of seeing the man healed before his very eyes Peter puts action to his faith in Jesus. How may times have you prayed for a friend, family member or member of Hillside and the Lord has pressed this person on your heart to more than to silently pray for them? Have you taken the time to call them up and see how things are going? Or have you taken the time to set up the time to meet with them to check in on them? Maybe you should have made a meal for them? Maybe they needed some help on something around the house or yard, yet were simply too stubborn to ask (I am guilty of being stubborn)?

I realize that there are times that you will simply prayer for your brothers and sisters and that is all that will be needed. They may not even know that you are praying for them, I believe this happens more than we will ever know. It is truly a blessing to know that there is another with a like mind set praying for me and that I am able to return the favor, even though neither of us knows that we are praying for one another. However, He did not give us the ability to work and move about to spend all of our time in our homes praying alone for one another. We are able to do these things so we are able to put action to our words, as Peter did with the beggar. I will tell you now that I have been guilty of this on more than one occasion. There have been times when praying for someone that there has been the urge to more than simply pray. However, with my great wisdom I mess things up and try to convince myself that I am praying for them and that should be enough.

Now I am going to beat up on myself a little. I have this friend that has asked me to pray specifically for certain things in their life and I do. However, awhile back as I prayed I felt this urge to call and check in on how these things were going in their life. However, I got busy and did not get around to calling them. That weekend they stumbled. We talked about it in great length after all this went down and I had to ask this friend for forgiveness since I let them down and was disobedient to God in what He had placed on my heart even though I was doing a good thing and praying for them. I pray tonight that this never happens to either of us again. I also pray that none of you ever have to carry this burden.

Is it possible that the beggar could have been healed if Peter was in another country while he prayed? I think it is possible, but we may have missed seeing the glory of God at work. Awhile back I was talking with a friend that I only see a couple of times a year and he had explained to me that he had been having a terrible time with his temper and then all of a sudden it stopped. He was not sure what happened, but it came to an end. Later on in the day we were talking about a friend of his and he told me how he had been explaining to his friend the problems with his temper. His friend replied, “Well that is not good, something needs to be done about that.” When I heard this, I knew with out a doubt that the other friend had been praying for him and told him I thought prayer had been involved with the temper going away. I saw this friend the next day and he told me he had called the other guy and asked if he had been praying for him and the answer was yes. See through this whole thing Jesus was at work and we almost missed out on knowing what had happened. The guy that had been praying was hundreds of miles away praying and the friend was healed.

I pray tonight that as we pray for one another that we will have discernment on when all we need to do is pray and when the times are that some action needs to take place with our prayers. At times it may seem outside of your comfort zone to lend your right hand to the beggar and help him up. However, it is such a wonderful thing when we are able to see the hand of God work before our very eyes.

God Bless,

Rick