A Close Encounter of the Spiritual Kind

Today's Reading: Acts 9:32-43

Like me, you have probably encountered some really strange things in your lifetime. Of course, if you spend anytime surfing the web these days, you see a lot of weirdness! So when I read this story in Acts of Aeneas and Dorcas both being healed, I wondered what they thought when it happened to them. Healing is not exactly your everyday sort of happening.

But there it is in the space of 12 verses, two healings! Aeneas who has been bedridden for eight years is suddenly able to walk. And Dorcas, well she was just plain dead. And then she wasn't.

Interestingly Peter tells them both to "get up" when he heals them. It's almost as if they are partly responsible for their current conditions because neither of them had thought to just get up.

Finally, the result of these healings is that many more people came to know Jesus. That is the ultimate goal of any work of the Lord, that more people would come to know and believe in Him.

So where have you been bedridden in your life? How did God tell you to get up? Will you share your story with someone who doesn't know Him?

Someone out there needs to have a close encounter with the living God. Let them see where God has worked a miracle in you. Maybe they will get up and walk too.

- Holly Barrett