“Then Peter said, ‘Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk.'” – Acts 3:6 (NIV)
He had been carried to the same spot every single day for more than forty years. The gate called Beautiful was one of the most trafficked entrances to the temple complex in Jerusalem, and whoever carried him there each morning understood something practical: where there are crowds with religious obligations, there is charity. The lame man was not there for a miracle. He was there for money. Which is why what happened next was so completely outside the frame of his expectations.
Peter and John had no silver or gold. The opening of Peter’s response is worth pausing over, not because the absence of money was unusual in their situation but because Peter did not treat it as the end of the conversation. He acknowledged the lack honestly and then immediately pivoted to what he did have. What I do have I give you. Seven words that contain an entire theology of Spirit-empowered ministry: you do not need everything. You need to offer what the Spirit has actually placed in your hands.
The name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth was not a formula or an incantation. It was a declaration of authority, an invocation of the risen Lord whose resurrection had just been proclaimed to three thousand people a few days earlier. When Peter said walk in that name, he was not speaking from his own credibility or his own spiritual performance. He was drawing on the only source of power that was actually sufficient for what stood in front of him, a man whose ankles and feet had never borne weight, whose muscles had never developed the strength required to stand, and whose entire life had been structured around the assumption that he never would.
What the Holy Spirit did in that moment undid what forty years of human effort had not been able to address. The man jumped to his feet, began to walk, and then began to leap, and he went with Peter and John into the temple courts, walking and jumping and praising God. Luke notes that all the people saw him and recognised him as the man who used to sit begging at the temple gate, and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. The miracle was public and unambiguous. There was no way to reinterpret it as coincidence.
There is a painful temptation in ministry and in personal witness to spend enormous energy apologising for what we lack, what resources we do not have, what connections we are missing, what platform we have not been given, rather than offering with boldness and faith what the Spirit has actually given us. Peter could have walked past the lame man with an apologetic shrug, genuinely sorry that he had no coins to spare. Instead, he offered the only thing he had that was worth having: access to the name that heals.
Today, make an honest inventory not of what you lack but of what the Spirit has actually placed in your hands. Your testimony, your prayer, your presence, your faith, your time, what you do have in the name of Jesus is more than enough for whatever need stands in front of you today. Offer it.
Prayer
Father, forgive me for spending so much time apologising for what I lack that I forget to offer what I actually have. Teach me Peter’s pivot: honest about the lack, bold about what is available in the name of Jesus. Let me offer what the Spirit has given me, without reservation, trusting that your name is more than sufficient for every need I encounter. In Jesus’ name, amen.
