Great Faith

In Luke 7:1-10, Jesus is confronted by elders of the Jews who came from a centurion, who had heard of Jesus. The centurion probably heard of the miracles that been taking place. This was just after the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus spends time with the people on a mountainside teaching them with wonderful words from God. News travels fast. The centurion asks the elders of the Jews to go and plead with him to come and heal the servant, who is paralyzed (Matt 8:6). Jesus begins to travel to the centurion's house, but before he could enter it, some friends of the centurion tell Jesus to just say the words and heal him, there is no need to come to his house because the centurion does not believe himself to be worthy to have Jesus in his house.

After Jesus heard the words of the centurion from his friends, it says that Jesus was amazed at his "great faith". How would you feel if Jesus were amazed at your faith? You see it wasn't that the centurion asks Jesus some intriguing question to show his faith. It wasn't that the Jesus was impressed with the centurion's position in the Roman army. The centurion showed his faith by recognizing that just the words that Jesus speaks can heal a man. And his faith is revealed by the fact that the man does not even feel worthy to have Jesus enter his house.

When Jesus comments on his faith in verse 9 by saying, "I tell you the truth I have not found such great faith even in Israel", he says this toward the crowd. So he wants people who witness this event to learn from this. Today as we read of it and believe it happened, we need to learn that what amazes or impresses Jesus is that we are humble in our spirit and we know that he is able to do more than we can imagine.

Live it,

BB