What I have, I give ...

This morning as I was praying for the church, I felt like the Lord brought to my mind the verse in Acts 3 where Peter tells the crippled man at the Temple gate called Beautiful, "Silver and gold we do not have, but what we have, we give ... in the name of Jesus, get up and walk!" And the man is healed and not only walks, but does a jig of joy.

I got to thinking about that. What do we have to give? Obviously, and I don't say this casually, we've got Jesus. We know Jesus and we have a living relationship with Jesus. We have an expectation that Jesus is on the move and that he wants to act and that if we ask, we can join in with him in his acting. This is big. It is no small thing. We've also got love to give. I'm continually amazed by the love in our church community, even when sometimes other attitudes are also present. We like each other. We love each other. We love people. We've got love to give. Simply loving someone - extending your hand to help someone out, extending your heart to take someone's concerns into it, extending your ears to listen - is a powerful thing. We've got love to give. And there's a third thing. We've got authenticity to give. We're real people. No pretentions. No politics. We're honest-hearted followers of Jesus trying to figure out God, and life with him and how to help the world. That's a deep thing. That is a gift we can give. Trying to be true to ourselves, and true to God, and true to others, and true to what is right. As a church community we can give these things away.

What do you have to give? Have you ever thought about it? You may not have lots of money. Or you might. You may not have lots of experience praying for people, but you're really good at hugging people and helping them know they're loved. You may have no training in preaching, but you're great at telling a story. What do you have to give? I invite you to give away what you have in the name of Jesus and see what Jesus will do.