Scripture: "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk." — Acts 3:6
Part One: The Man at the Beautiful Gate
Let me take you to a place you know very well—a gate. Not just any gate, but the Beautiful Gate of the temple in Jerusalem. Imagine, if you will, a man sprawled on a mat so worn that the fibres whisper the story of forty years of waiting. Forty years of being carried. Forty years of being laid down. Forty years of watching sandals shuffle past—priests in their fine linen, merchants counting coins, women bearing sacrifices.
He asked for silver. He asked for gold. He had trained his tongue to beg before he could walk. Every morning, someone carried him up that steep path to the temple. Every evening, someone carried him back to a dark room where the only sound was his own breathing and the rats scrambling for scraps.
But here is the paradox that will either liberate you or leave you lame at the gate:
Your limitation is not your liability—it is your launchpad. What you lack is not your loss—it is your lever.
Peter and John walked past that same gate every day. But on this particular afternoon, something was different. The Scripture says Peter fastened his eyes on the man. Not a glance. Not a pity-filled sigh. A fastening. A holy locking of gaze.
Then came those words—words that split history in two: "Silver or gold I do not have..."
Stop right there. A beggar asking a beggar for money? A poor man healing a poorer man? A fisherman who left his nets now leaving his pockets empty? Is this not the mathematics of heaven turned upside down?
Part Two: The Arithmetic of Ascent
Let me teach you something I have learned in the streets of Akasia, in the queues at SASSA, in the churches where the offering plate is passed and the people still sing like angels:
Poverty is not the absence of provision—it is the presence of permission for heaven to move.
I remember a Tuesday in January. Load-shedding had just hit stage 4. The whole of Pretoria sat in darkness. My neighbour, Bra Solomon, knocked on my gate. His grandson had collapsed. Fever. Shaking. The clinic was closed. He had no car. No money for a taxi.
I had R47 in my wallet. No fuel. No medical training.
But I had a name.
We laid hands on that boy in the dark, with the only light coming from a phone battery at 12%. And we said, "Silver and gold we do not have—but in the name of Jesus Christ, rise."
The boy opened his eyes. The fever broke by morning.
Do not tell me that the name has lost its power. The name has not lost its power—the church has lost its nerve.
Part Three: The Argument from Authority
Let us define our terms clearly, because confusion is the playground of the enemy.
What is a name? Not a label. Not a nickname. In the biblical imagination, a name is the sum total of one's identity, authority, and reputation compressed into a sound.
What is the name of Jesus? It is the verbal signature of the Creator of the universe—the Word made flesh, the One who walked on water and through graves, the One who silenced storms and summoned corpses back to consciousness.
Now follow the logic carefully:
· Premise One: All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Jesus Christ (Matthew 28:18).
· Premise Two: Jesus delegated the use of His name to His disciples as the legal instrument of His continued ministry (John 14:13-14).
· Premise Three: You are a disciple if you have surrendered your life to His lordship.
· Conclusion: Therefore, the same authority that raised Christ from the dead resides in the name you carry in your mouth.
A common objection arises here: "But Harold, I am not Peter. I have not walked with Jesus. I have failed too many times. My faith is small."
Respectfully, this objection fails because it confuses the source of the power with the vessel of the power. Peter had denied Jesus three times—wept like a coward while his Master bled. Yet here he stands, healing a man lame for four decades. Not because Peter became perfect, but because the name remained potent.
The electricity does not care if the wire is rusty—it only cares if it is connected.
Part Four: The South African Context—Where the Gates Are Still Crowded
Walk with me through the streets of Tshwane. Pass the Union Buildings where politicians promise and postpone. Pass the taxi rank where hawkers sell socks and sorrow. Pass the spaza shop where the owner works sixteen hours to send money to Malawi or Mozambique.
Our nation is the man at the Beautiful Gate.
We have been carried for thirty years—carried by hope, carried by disappointment, carried by load-shedding schedules and water shutdowns and potholes that swallow cars whole. We ask the government for silver. We ask the private sector for gold. We ask the IMF for loans and the World Bank for bailouts.
But the real healing—the deep healing—cannot be purchased with the currency of this world.
The Budget Speech cannot heal a broken marriage. The interest rate cut cannot cast out a spirit of depression. The fuel subsidy cannot raise a child from the dead.
I was at Church Street last week. A young man sat against the wall of the old Reserve Bank building. Unemployed. Angry. Drunk at 10am. I sat down next to him—not to preach, but to listen.
"I need money," he slurred.
"No," I said. "You need something money cannot buy."
He laughed bitterly. "Spare me the Jesus talk."
I didn't spare him. I told him about a man who lay at a gate for forty years. I told him that the men who healed him had no money but carried a name that made cripples dance. Then I asked if I could pray for him—right there, against the bank that held no hope for him.
He said yes.
We prayed. He wept. He did not get a job that day. But something loosened in his chest. He took my number. He came to church on Sunday. He is still struggling—but he is standing.
Part Five: The Prophetic Confrontation
We must sound the alarm against a gospel that has reduced Christianity to a financial transaction.
There are preachers in this country—on DStv, on YouTube, on the radio—who have convinced you that the measure of God's blessing is the thickness of your wallet. They have turned the Beautiful Gate into a casino. They have made Peter into a prosperity prophet and Jesus into a divine ATM.
Let me be clear: The devil does not care if you worship God for gold, because gold can be stolen. But the devil trembles when you worship God for who He is—because that worship cannot be hacked.
The man at the gate did not need Peter's money. He needed Peter's God. And Peter had no money to give—which was the greatest gift he could offer, because it forced the man to look past the messenger and meet the Master.
Do you understand? If Peter had thrown him a bag of silver, the man would have limped home to buy bread and wine and forgotten the name that could heal his legs. But because Peter gave him nothing but the name, the man walked—and kept walking—and the first steps he took were not toward the market, but toward the temple, walking and leaping and praising God.
Part Six: The Call to Action—Your Daily Decree
Here is the law that cannot be broken:
What you carry determines what you can release. What you possess internally determines what you can produce externally.
You have been sitting at your own Beautiful Gate. Waiting for a cheque. Waiting for a promotion. Waiting for a spouse. Waiting for the government to fix the roads. Waiting for the church to notice you.
But the question is not what are you waiting for?
The question is what are you carrying?
Do you carry the name? Then stop begging at the gate and start walking through it.
Your restoration is not just for you—it is the proof of the Name for others. The same Jesus who pulled you out of the mud wants to flow through you to pull others out. You may lack silver and gold, but you carry something far more valuable—the name that changes everything.
Part Seven: The Blessing and the Charge
I bless you today with holy audacity. May you carry the name of Jesus with such authority that those who encounter you encounter His healing power. May your empty pockets become the stage for heaven's provision. May your weakness become the microphone for His strength.
And I charge you—go to the gate. Go to the place where the broken gather. Go to the tavern, the shebeen, the street corner, the hospital ward, the prison cell. Do not go with a sermon prepared. Go with a name on your lips.
When they ask for silver, give them the Name.
When they ask for gold, give them the Name.
When they ask for proof, give them your own story—the story of a lame man who learned to walk.
For the Name that broke the back of paralysis still breaks chains. The Name that silenced death still silences fear. The Name that turned water into wine can turn your poverty into power.
"Silver and gold I do not have, but what I do have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth—walk."
And when you walk, do not walk quietly. Walk leaping. Walk praising. Walk as a sign and a wonder to a nation that has forgotten that the greatest treasure is not in the bank—it is in the Name.
Amen.
— Harold Mawela
Akasia, Pretoria
2026
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lame-man-healed/id1506692775?i=1000759989868
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