Matthew 8:5-13 “And when Jesus entered Capernaum,
a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, “Lord, my servant
is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.” Jesus said to
him, “I will come and heal him.” But the centurion said, “Lord, I am
not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant
will be healed. For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers
under me; and I say to this one, ‘Go!’ and he goes, and to another, ‘Come!’ and
he comes, and to my slave, ‘Do this!’ and he does it.” Now when Jesus
heard this, He marveled and said to those who were following, “Truly
I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. I
say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline at
the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but
the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that
place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” And Jesus said to
the centurion, “Go; it shall be done for you as you have
believed.” And the servant was healed that very moment.”
(NASB)
Hello,
I was reading through part of Matthew this past week when this
story stood out to me. As this man asked Jesus to heal his sick servant, and
only needed the word of Jesus – not His presence – to know he would be healed.
Jesus marveled at the man’s faith. As I look at the explanation that the centurion
gave, it is clear that he understood something we need to remember – true authority.
The reason he didn’t need Jesus to show up at the house to heal the man was
because he recognized the healing power wasn’t about the presence of the body
of Jesus, but rather it was found in His authority – which didn’t require
immediate physical proximity. The authority of Jesus existed no matter where He
was – the centurion knew this, and just looked for the command which would be
obeyed under true authority.
How are we doing at allowing God to have His true authority
in our daily lives?
No comments:
Post a Comment