Don't Look at Me

Acts 3:11–16

Phrases that spoke to me today:
• “Men of Israel, why are you amazed at this?”
• “Why do you look so intently at us as if we had made him walk by our own power or piety?”
• “The author of life you put to death, but God raised him from the dead.”
• “By faith in his name, this man whom you see and know was made strong.”

Applying the Word to My Life:
I have never been very comfortable with compliments. When someone starts to give me credit, there is something in me that wants to duck out of the moment. Part of that is probably just discomfort with attention. Part of it is knowing how mixed my motives can be and how quickly my ego can take over.

But underneath all of that is something deeper. The good in anything I do does not finally belong to me. God gets the credit for that. I am slowly getting better at just receiving the kindness and trying to give the credit back to Him, but it still feels awkward. There is something exposed about having eyes on me in a moment that is supposed to be about something good.

Peter is facing a similar moment here, but in a much larger way. A man has just been healed in full public view. The crowd is amazed. The healed man is clinging to Peter and John. And Peter is standing in front of a mixed crowd. Some are amazed at what they think Peter has done. Others are part of the same world that recently handed Jesus over and had Him killed for doing works like this. What is Peter going to do?

That depends on which Peter shows up. If this were Peter in the courtyard while Jesus was on trial, we already know the answer. We would get a quick denial and a fast exit. Maybe remorse afterward, but in the moment he would do whatever it took to get himself to safety.

But we could go back even farther than that. There was also the Peter who knew how to enjoy being important. The Peter who heard that he was the rock and then, almost immediately, tried to correct Jesus Himself. The Peter who could be near Christ and still have a lot of Peter mixed in with it.

Both of these give us a whole lot of Peter and not much room for Christ. Fortunately, we get a different Peter today. He neither promotes himself nor protects himself. He points straight to Christ. He does not let the crowd stay impressed with him, and he does not shrink back from being associated with Jesus. He tells them exactly whose power they have just witnessed, and he does it in front of the very kind of people who once made him afraid to admit he even knew Him.

Most of us are not going to stand in Solomon’s Portico with a healed man clinging to our arm and a crowd staring at us. But we do get smaller versions of this all the time. A conversation turns toward us. Something goes well and people notice. We get credit for something. We get blamed for something. We feel pressure to explain ourselves, defend ourselves, look strong, sound wise, or come out of the moment with our image intact. And those moments tend to reveal a lot.

Sometimes I protect myself. I get quiet about Christ because I do not want the awkwardness, the misunderstanding, or the cost of being too clearly associated with Him. Sometimes I promote myself. I enjoy being seen as sharp, helpful, faithful, steady, or strong. I may not say it out loud, but I quietly let the moment become more about me than it should. Even when the setting is religious, it is possible to leave a whole lot of me in the middle of something that was supposed to leave more room for Christ.

That is why Peter feels so different here. He is not just being brave. He is finally free enough not to make himself the point. He does not protect himself from being linked to Jesus, and he does not promote himself by soaking in the crowd’s amazement. He gives the moment back to Christ. The same man who once denied Jesus under pressure now names Him boldly under attention and threat. That is not a personality adjustment. That is what grace looks like when it has really started to change someone.

If I stop at the miracle, I miss what this reading can reveal about my own life with Christ. It is not just asking whether I believe in giving God the glory in some general sense. It is asking what actually happens in me when a moment puts eyes on me.

When a moment puts eyes on me, do I protect myself, promote myself, or point to Christ?

My Response for Today:
Today, I will look back on one moment of attention and ask where I tried to direct it.