Ok, it’s time for a message. Silver and Gold. In the Book of Acts, scripture tells us of a lame man who daily asked people for money as they entered the temple. And on one such day he happened to ask for money from the disciples, Peter and John. Expecting to receive something from them, scripture in Acts 3:6-8 says Peter responded to the man this way saying “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give to you: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk”. We are living in a world and in a time where many of us want things to be made right for us or for someone we know or for people we believe are being hurt or persecuted or enslaved or wronged in some systemic ways. We want justice; we want what’s right; we want redemption; we want the rule of law to be held up against those who have brought or are bringing or will bring us pain or hurt or or harm or dishonor in any way. We will go to the courts to ask for this; we will go to the authorities to request for this; we will go to public opinion and the court of ridicule and scorn and condemnation to demand this of people we don’t even know and even in some cases of people who love us. Unfortunately for us, the world becomes our temple and it will be happy to listen to our cases and to help us put our cases and our voices on the world’s Facebook for everyone like us to know, so that we can get what we want even if we must shame and condemn others to get it. Seeing that those who hurt us are brought to justice is the silver and gold we request. But when we get that type justice, do we have really what we should have? I don’t know about you, but as for me, I know I could not stand before the world’s Facebook judgment and live. Who I was in times past is not who I am today. My past is not clean enough for me to have to live it daily before you and everyone else; if I had to live daily making right all my wrongdoings against you and everyone else, I would die not from what I had done but from trying to atone for what I had done. So that reminds me to never live or to judge or to give in to the way the world has made it right for me to live. Silver and gold I do not have nor do I want. But I have Jesus. And now I try to live like Him snd to forgive like Him and to give like Him and love like Him. I don’t need people who hurt me or are mean to me or are spiteful toward me to have to live trying to make things right with me. I use the hard things of my past – things I have done and things I have had done to me – to make me a better person today. I don’t want to be buried by my past nor do I want to bury others in their past. I want to help others learn from and to rise up and be better. I don’t want the pain of my past to cause pain in the present for me or anyone else. I would rather have Jesus and give others a life devoted to Jesus too. Live a Delivered Life. Love you
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