Beautiful Beggar

Do you remember the story where Peter and John met the disabled beggar at the Beautiful Gate? (see Acts 3). It was a choice place to beg. High traffic. Lots of people hoping to look good before God. A choice place indeed.

But something else happened at the Beautiful Gate. Most scholars believe, that this is the place where parents brought their children to be dedicated. Can you imagine the contrast between these beautiful babies with so much life potential and the beggars whose lives had been reduced to begging for a few coins? I sometimes look at a lost soul roaming the downtown streets and think, “They were somebody’s baby once.” Did the beggars at the gate ever looked at the those infants and wonder how things could have gone so terribly wrong for them?

But then God did a miracle. All he had hoped for was a coin or two, but suddenly, through his encounter with Peter and John, the disabled man was, "walking, and jumping, and praising God." And then he was in the courts! And finally clinging the apostles!

All the potential that God had intended for his life was finally starting to materialize. He went from begging to praising; from sitting to jumping, from hoping for spare change, to living for God’s glory.

Come to think of it, his story is ours. In Christ, we are all beautiful beggars.