What Do You Have?
A credit card company has coined the phrase “What’s in your wallet?” The idea behind their phrase is that with their card, your buying power goes up.
If you were rich and had more than enough money in your bank and someone you cared about needed some of it, you would not hesitate to give it to them.
But if you had lots of money in your bank but were unaware it was there, you might desire to help them but think it impossible to do so.
This idea can be true spiritually. If you do not know what you have, you are not in a position to give to or to bless others.
There is a true story in the Scriptures that reveals the truth of this.
Acts 3:6 Then Peter said, “Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.”
Here was a lame man who, for 42 years, had been lame. He had never walked. Thus, he had no other option but to beg for money from others. Although lame, he was a survivor. However, he was not a thriver. So, as was his routine, he had someone take him to the beautiful gate at the temple, and he encountered Peter and John, who were going to the temple to pray, and he expected to get money from them. Instead, he got what they had, and it wasn’t money.
What Peter and John had could do far more for the man than just meet his temporary need of the moment. Had they simply given him money, he might have met his need for that day, but tomorrow would come, and the same repetitious plan of surviving would be back into place.
Peter and John possessed something that could take this man beyond surviving and bring him into a place of thriving. They had what the man most needed. They had the Healer, Jesus! They had the same Spirit in them and upon them that raised Jesus from the dead. The Holy Spirit which gives life to our mortal bodies! They knew they had this, and they knew by faith that they could freely give it to this man who was in need.
When someone has Jesus and is baptized with the same Spirit He walked in and was raised from the dead by; they have something to give to others. As has already been said, no one can give what they do not know they have. It is so important for believers to know who they belong to and what they possess.
What do you have?
