Acts 14 "Gazing Intently"

Acts 14 – Brandon Hatmaker “Gazing Intently”
Wednesday, April 30, 2008

“In Lystra there sat a man crippled in his feet, who was lame from birth and had never walked. He listened to Paul as he was speaking. Paul looked directly at him, saw that he had faith to be healed and called out, "Stand up on your feet!" At that, the man jumped up and began to walk.” Acts 14:8-9

Paul saw that this man had enough faith to be healed. Once again, we see evidence of faith. The Greek wording used communicates not only that Paul looked at him directly, but that he was "gazing intently". This was with intention to discern the depth of His faith. Because of this intentionality, he was able to perceive what this hope in Christ meant to him. And he was healed. When Paul told him to stand up, he didn’t say, “why?” Scripture tells us that he jumped up and began to walk.. He was expecting great things, and Paul perceived this through simply watching him.

So many questions follow: What do we perceive about faith from one another? Do we take intentional moments to see what the Spirit is doing in us and around us? Do we take moments to see if God is moving elsewhere that we might join His movement (or at least be encouraged by it)?

As a huge part of the vision of Austin New Church, we've been spending a lot of time prayerfully looking for new ministry partnerships and opportunities to serve the poor and abandoned not only in Austin, but in other countries. Today, I had the honor to sit with a couple of my friends and hear the story of two incredible missionaries near Roma, Texas who run an orphanage in a Mexico border town. They did not ask God to give them an orphanage to run. It was not their original vision. In fact, the man started as a Pastor of a church. But when given a moment to sit and share stories of God’s faithfulness and his movement in and through this orphanage, I was amazed. And I was ministered to. I caught myself just listening, probably gazing (hopefully like Paul, with "intent" to discern their faith), and hearing story after story. It was obvious that their faith was great. And great things were happening for these abandoned children. That’s because God is great and He is doing great things.