How Peter addresses the crowd in Acts 3:12 leads us to the conclusion that God has determined that true, spiritual work requires God’s power so that he gets all the glory. Now there are no apostles today and even the miraculous works of the apostles were distinguished from the rest of the church at the end of Acts 2, so the takeaway for us from this passage is not to go around declaring that the lame should walk. That being said, how do we commit ourselves to the preeminence of Christ by exalting his supreme power? In 1 Cor. 2, the Apostle Paul declares that he accomplished this by purposely abstaining from worldly wisdom and ingenuity, but here’s another related answer from 2 Cor. 4:7 But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; 8 we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; 9 persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; 10 always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body.
This passage, along with others, implies that natural wisdom, strength and strategies can get in the way of God’s work in our own lives and in our ministry to others. It follows then that your greatest hindrance is not anything that makes you weak in your flesh, but rather your greatest hindrance is the pride that makes you self-sufficient or self-exalting. In other words, it’s anything that leads you away from the proper object of boasting found in Gal. 6:14 But may it never be that I would boast, except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.
Do you depend upon the power of God?
