Healing at the gate called "Beautiful"

Usually when Jesus calls you a name, it is not for who you are right then as much as who you will be.
E.g. He renamed Simon "Peter" as the rock (petros)on which he would build his church.

So I have been going through such a rut lately (maybe an understatement), but things are slowly getting better. This morning I realized that 'giving' is my primary love language because I realized I kept offering food to my roommate (like the friendship bread I had w/ breakfast), and even though she kept refusing, I kept wanting to share some of what I knew to be good w/ her. I like to share a lot of my things, and anything that makes me happy I usually want to give to someone else so that they will be happy too. This isn't always true, but generally. It's really nice to know your primary love language. It makes me feel like I have a purpose (even though that is NOT what should give me purpose), an intentional creation, and that made me feel less "rut"-ish.

I had one of those mornings that ran like a clock but I only briefly looked at the beautiful gentle morning light caressing through the limbs. God might speak, most definitely speaks, on other types of days, but the days that we least notice what he is doing that He decides to hurl a spiritual brick into our face and make us stumble and fall back flat seeing stars. Probably pay back for not noticing the grass. I had one of those mornings, and I am still recovering (sigh).

Church seemed normal enough. Mark Sworenson spoke first on the passage in Joshuah where God actually made the sun stand still (great passage), and then he moved into Acts 3 where Peter and John heal a crippled beggar sitting at the temple gate. I know the story from years of kids church, but today it took on a whole new meaning for me. It starts w/ Peter and John walking to their afternoon prayer. A beggar sitting in front of the temple gate called "BEAUTIFUL" holds out his hand or shouts at them or maybe he just mumbles a half hearted question and continues to look at the ground in a hopeless plea for money. Peter and John stop, LOOK STRAIGHT AT HIM, and say "LOOK AT US!", which he does in hopes of something they have.
Then Peter says, straight into this man's upturned, expectant, needy face, full eye contact, "Silver and gold have I none, but that what I have I GIVE YOU. IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH, WALK." TAKING HIM BY THE HAND he lifted up the crippled beggar and in that instant he became strong. The once crippled man began to walk and dance and praise God STRAIGHT IN TO THE HOUSE OF GOD W/ THE REST OF HIS CHILDREN.

Silver and Gold I may have, but the greatest thing I can give someone is Jesus Christ! I have had such a calling to help the homeless and needy people around me, but the besides a meal, socks, or running water, these people need my Jesus, the fisherman who can supply all their needs. These people don't really want just money, they need to walk and run! They need to jump and dance all the way into the courts of our Lord, and I think I think God wants to use me as one of the gates to do this. Mark Sworenson had randomly mentioned the little tidbit about about the names Jesus gives being precursors of what is to come, and it didn't really hit home until the temple gate under which this horribly crippled beggar sat just happened to be called "Beautiful". The name Rebekah means beautiful, among other things, so my mom has used "Beautiful" as a nickname for me ever since I was little. It is a very deep down, love-you-mom, home connected nickname for me. When Mark got to that part of the passage I literally starting tearing up and had to hold them back until the passage was finished b/c I felt like God was speaking directly to me. The temple gate called "Beautiful", that's me. It isn't even a door, its the opening in the wall, it is the place that is designed to hold up some of the wall so people can walk through the gap and be in the courts of God. It isn't a thing, its a hole, its a space specially created by God under which crippled beggars WILL be brought, WILL be looked at, WILL be helped up, and WILL be healed. This is a promise. It is the place where the crippled can get to God, the space that would be nothing more than a hole, except God is on the other side. It is a gap that shows the way to God. Wow.
So maybe the gate "Beautiful" will help the desolate population here some time soon. I don't know what will happen, but I am encouraged that God will pull miraculous things out of his creation. Geez I wish I knew what it all meant so I could start doing something!! But another thing I have learned lately is that I need only have faith that something will happen, and take it one day at a time. If you read this, pray for me. I need to just be. Just be happy, just be faithful, just be God's.

"Go!"

Then Jesus came to them and said "All authority on heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go..."
--rev. Jonathan Beck--
---The following space is provided for notations from today's message---

(to God)
be Passion, if you are.
Say something big

We are becoming pale and fat Christians. Couch potatoes.

--"Marvin K. Mooney will you please go now!"

Matt. 28: 18-19a
18 And Jesus came and said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore, GO!"