The lame begger healed.
What a story.
I’ve known it since I was young and did all the actions to that song. But the LORD gave me new eyes to read this passage (Acts 3:1-10) today.
1Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2And a man lame from birth was being carried, whom they laid daily at the gate of the temple that is called the Beautiful Gate to ask alms of those entering the temple. 3Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive alms. 4And Peter directed his gaze at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” 5And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. 6But Peter said, ”I have no silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” 7And he took him by the right hand and raised him up, and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. 8And leaping up he stood and began to walk, and entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. 9And all the people saw him walking and praising God, 10and recognized him as the one who sat at the Beautiful Gate of the temple, asking for alms. And they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.
Here is a man who, because of an infirmity, was expected to do nothing more than to beg. He was cut off from the rest of the society, and had no hope for life except for the coins people would throw to him occasionally. Can you imagine that? Can you imagine having nothing to do all day except to lie at the feet of strangers and ask for their money and pity?
Then Peter and John come. They come, and they can’t meet this man’s material needs. But that’s not what they’re here for. Rather than throwing him a coin and going about his day, Peter and John look directly into this man’s eyes. The look at his heart. They hear his request for alms but they see a greater need. They see why the man is kept at that gate every day. They have little to give when it comes to cash, but much to give when it comes to freedom. So Peter tells him, in the name of Christ, to stand up and walk; to walk away from the chains that held him to that darkness every day. Peter took his right hand and helped him up - and the LORD did it all. He made the man’s feet and ankles strong. The Spirit empowered him to go walking and leaping and praising God.
Many of you will know that the vision that the LORD has given me for my life is for ministry with the homeless, the poor and the mentally ill. I have a friend who sits out on a street corner, bound by his situation, every single day. He’s been there for over eight years. He asks for money, but I know he’s needing more than that.
I don’t want to put much more out there about this situation on my tumblr, but I am needing a group of prayer warriors to join with me in prayer. I will be sending out regular updates on how the LORD is answering them. The LORD is our strength, and we need the walls built around this man’s heart to be broken down. Like the walls of Jericho crumpled, I trust that the LORD will knock down the barriers to this man knowing life. If you’re interested in joining with me to pray and to see God do marvellous things in this man’s life, please write to me in my ask and let me know. When God’s people offer up their times and lives to His kingdom, great things happen.
A homeless man serves the homeless. ↘
Ray Polk is a one-man social agency, offering food, clothes, counseling and a makeshift chapel to his fellow denizens of the streets. And he’s created a memorial to those who have died.
Reporting from Fresno.The flower is fake, and the puppy belongs to a 24-year-old homeless woman and this strip of dirt under a highway overpass that Ray Polk is trying to turn into a sacred ground of sorts is surrounded by nothing but concrete and tattered tents.
But Polk wears a warm, gap-toothed smile watching the puppy, Mercedes (the name means mercies), tussle with one of the plastic flowers on his memorial to the homeless who have died here.
“You got yourself a friend there,” he tells owner Christina Calkins.
A cold wind whips Calkins’ hair across her face as she reads the names beside each flower: Sam, Eddie, Baby Doll, Theresa, Hiddie, Duckworth, Mr. Miles….
Polk points to names and rattles off the different ways they died: “hit by a train, overdose, overdose, murdered, just wore out, beat to death other side of G street — sweet guy, handicapped, couldn’t defend himself, another train….”
“Sometimes I come by and look, even though it scares me,” said Calkins. “It makes me realize how dangerous it is out here. It makes me realize I shouldn’t be out here. But I am.”
Polk, 58, is out here too.
In the shadow of an abandoned overpass, less than a quarter mile from the larger tent cities that flank the south side of Fresno, he’s carved out a one-man social agency: a homeless man helping the homeless.
That fresh-white counter over there (a donated cabinet with a coat of paint) is where he distributes food to a few dozen homeless people.
A church group picks up donations from Trader Joe’s and brings them to him every week. Polk displays bread and produce in a repurposed Otis Spunkmeyer case on top of the counter.
Along the dead-end road he calls home he has staked Bible verses on poster board — a picket fence of misspelled Scripture. He has a locked shack full of clothes in case someone needs something to keep them warm. There’s a chapel fashioned of blue tarp.
At his counseling station — a desk and two mismatched chairs — a nondescript painting of flowers hangs on plywood that might generously be considered a wall.
It’s here, Polk said, that he does his most important work.
“I give them my ear to hear what they have to say. Sometimes that’s what people need most: somebody hearing what they’re saying.”
The name of the place, Homeless Ministries, is spelled out marquee style, but instead of in neon it’s with white cups placed in the holes of a chain link fence.
“Where’s the sympathy if we were always chastising: ‘Why can’t you be normal? Why can’t you get a job, get an apartment, pay your bills go rest a bit and get back out the next day and do it again?’ He talks on so strongly about what he’s doing out there that you can’t want but to leave him alone. He’s got work to do.”
Full story here.
reblog
source:sketchmedesire sketchmedesire
notes:52
posted:1 year ago
tags:inspiring touching God love servant homelessness
