“When they realized he was the lame beggar they had seen so often at the Beautiful Gate, they were absolutely astounded!” Acts 3:10
The key to modern day marketing is found in the testimonials. From late night infomercials, to emails and website pop-ups, marketers are trying to get us to buy their product or service. After they go through the process of showing us the product, they want to seal the deal in our mind by using testimonies from “people just like you and me.” Whether the person has lost 50 pounds in 3 months or grown all their hair back, it’s the personal story that we see and hear that they know will help convince us that their product is real and that we need to buy in.
God is the Master Marketer of all time, and He wants to show a lost and dying world their need for His Salvation (Sozo) in their lives. And just how does God want to show this to the world? He simply wants to astound the world by what He does in and through our lives.
When Moses’ father-in-law, Jethro, heard what God had done through Moses, he was amazed and praised God; a God, mind you, that He had never himself worshiped before. After all, Jethro was the priest of Midian, representing another god.
When the people of Jerusalem saw and heard what had happened in the beggar’s life, the Bible says they were “astounded.” God used Peter and John in a mighty way that day to bring healing to a crippled man who had spent his life begging beside the Temple Gate.
Today, as we trust in God’s unlimited power and receive, by faith, the Sozo that He has so graciously provided for us through Jesus, let us allow our Heavenly Father to astound the world around us through our lives.