1Peter and John were going up into the temple at the hour of prayer, the ninth hour. 2A certain man who was lame from his mother’s womb was being carried, whom they laid daily at the door of the temple which is called Beautiful, to ask gifts for the needy of those who entered into the temple. 3Seeing Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked to receive gifts for the needy. 4Peter, fastening his eyes on him, with John, said, “Look at us.” 5He listened to them, expecting to receive something from them. 6But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have, that I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, get up and walk!” 7He took him by the right hand and raised him up. Immediately his feet and his ankle bones received strength. 8Leaping up, he stood and began to walk. He entered with them into the temple, walking, leaping, and praising God. 9All the people saw him walking and praising God. 10They recognized him, that it was he who used to sit begging for gifts for the needy at the Beautiful Gate of the temple. They were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him. 11As the lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the porch that is called Solomon’s, greatly wondering.
12When Peter saw it, he responded to the people, “You men of Israel, why do you marvel at this man? Why do you fasten your eyes on us, as though by our own power or godliness we had made him walk? 13The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified his Servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied in the presence of Pilate, when he had determined to release him. 14But you denied the Holy and Righteous One and asked for a murderer to be granted to you, 15and killed the Prince of life, whom God raised from the dead, to which we are witnesses. 16By faith in his name, his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which is through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.
17“Now, brothers, I know that you did this in ignorance, as did also your rulers. 18But the things which God announced by the mouth of all his prophets, that Christ should suffer, he thus fulfilled.
19“Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, 20and that he may send Christ Jesus, who was ordained for you before, 21whom heaven must receive until the times of restoration of all things, which God spoke long ago by the mouth of his holy prophets. 22For Moses indeed said to the fathers, ‘The Lord God will raise up a prophet for you from among your brothers, like me. You shall listen to him in all things whatever he says to you. 23It will be that every soul that will not listen to that prophet will be utterly destroyed from among the people.’ 24Yes, and all the prophets from Samuel and those who followed after, as many as have spoken, also told of these days. 25You are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘All the families of the earth will be blessed through your offspring.’ 26God, having raised up his servant Jesus, sent him to you first to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your wickedness.”
19 “Repent therefore, and turn again, that your sins may be blotted out, so that there may come times of refreshing from the presence of the Lord, 20 and that he may send Christ Jesus, who was ordained for you before,
This is Peter’s address to a group of unbelievers, but we, as believers, can pick up some truth in it as well. Life in today’s world can become hectic. We are busy all the time. Most of us are on our phones frequently throughout the day. We are inundated with the latest news from the four corners of the earth. If a plane crashes in a distant country, most of us know it within an hour. At times, we can be overwhelmed by information, and then, we have activity exhaustion. We are so scheduled up that we feel guilty or defeated if we don’t get everything done that we put on our Google calendar for the day. At least I’m guilty of that. Scheduled events can become exhausting and overwhelming. We can also drift far from the Lord through neglect of being still and sitting before Him. Our souls grow hungry for a fresh encounter with Christ. We become spiritually anemic from the lack of prayer, taking in the Word, and just sitting in His presence. When we are spiritually exhausted, we just desperately need to be refreshed.
When things get off track, this verse tells us that we need to repent. For believers, this is not a repentance unto salvation, but it is still repentance. What does that mean exactly? It means that we must rethink what we’re thinking, saying, and doing, and make some necessary adjustments. That might mean enacting a “media fast” in our lives. That could be by setting certain days (or hours) aside, where we turn the smartphone off. It might be by reserving a day in our week that we schedule nothing or very little. Perhaps we should consciously ask God to fill our calendar on a particular day instead of filling it ourselves. It might mean to consciously declutter our life of good but unnecessary activities and “stuff”.
It might mean just confessing some sin or sins in our lives that need to be confessed. John said, “9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and righteous to forgive us the sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say that we haven’t sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:9-10 WEB)That’s what I like to call a “spiritual reboot”. Sometimes the best way to fix the computer is to turn it off, wait, and then turn it back on. 1 John 1:9 is how we spiritually reboot our lives. This is written to believers, not unbelievers, as some have said.
Sit still before God and ask Him to bring to your mind things that you’ve thought, said, or done that are contrary to His will for your life. Agree with Him that these are sins. That is what it means to confess your sins. Ask Him to set you on a different course. You will then experience the “times of refreshing in the presence of the Lord”. This restores the joy in your life. As the old hymn proclaims, “How marvelous, oh how wonderful is my Savior’s love for me!”