Acts 3 records the story of the man who had been lame from birth who was healed at the temple gate called beautiful. Peter and John were about to pass through that gate to go into the temple when they saw the lame man begging. They stopped, and Peter said to him “I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene – walk!”
Seizing the man by the right hand, Peter raised him up; and his feet and ankles were immediately strengthened. With a leap, the man stood straight up and began to walk; and he entered the temple with Peter and John, walking and leaping and praising God. When all the people saw him walking and praising God they realized that he was the one who used to daily sit at the beautiful gate begging for alms and they were amazed at what had happened. As the healed man was clinging to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them at the portico of Solomon full of amazement. When Peter saw this happening, he replied to the people, and said, “Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, why do you gaze at us as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers, has glorified His child Jesus…” Then in verse 16 Peter said something astonishing, “And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know, and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all.”
Peter makes it very clear that it wasn’t because of his or John’s power or spirituality that this man was perfectly healed, but Peter says in verse 16 that it was through the faith of Jesus that this man was perfectly healed. When Peter says, “and on the basis of faith in His name,” he is just saying that he believed that Jesus believed that He was going to heal the man. The “name” simply references the person, presence, and attributes of Jesus. Peter totally believed that Jesus was present in Him and would heal the man because Jesus believed that He could. That’s what faith is; simply coming into His rest about all things. Believing what Jesus believes and resting in Jesus’ restful confidence that he can do it.
Hebrews 12:2 says, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and the perfecter of faith.” Maybe that means more than just the fact that Jesus modeled perfectly the life of faith. Could it be that we are to fix our eyes on Jesus who lives in us who is the author and the perfecter of faith in us, one situation at a time? In other words, as Galatians 2:20 says, we live by the faith of the Son of God. Any time we are tempted to believe it’s because Jesus within us is authoring faith and we are simply to enter into His confidence about it. To believe what He believes for allows Jesus to perfect His faith in us that he’s authored, which brings those things that exists in the spiritual realm into our natural experience.