Two days ago and today we are talking on examples of faith in the Bible.
Matthew 8:5-13 – 5 When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. 6 “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering.” 7 Jesus said to him, “I will go and heal him.”
8 The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. 9 For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, “I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. 11 I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. 12 But the
subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
13 Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! It will be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that very hour.
The Centurion had faith in the power of the Lord.
When I read the above verses, the one thing that really sticks out to me is when Jesus states many will come from the east and west to take their places and feast with Abraham. You see salvation comes through Jesus which came through the line of the Jews. However, the Lord loves us all and doesn’t want any to perish.
Of course the other is the Centurion saying to the Lord, Just say the word and it will be done. He believed it. That’s not the power of positive thinking. He knew the Lord had to grant it, he just didn’t believe He was going to do it automatically. He knew the if the Lord did, it would be done. Either way it was the correct faith to have.
I find when the request is to benefit the Kingdom, our relationship with Him, or relationships with others concerning Him, some form always seems to be answered. Not only that, but much better than if we did it ourselves. MUCH!
We need to put faith into the Lord, not ourselves. When we do things, we need to do them with the Lord in mind, not just ourselves. Trust in the Lord, He wants that very much.