According to Your Faith

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

ACCORDING TO YOUR FAITH

Matt 9:27-31

27 As Jesus went on from there, two blind men followed him, calling out, "Have mercy on us, Son of David!" 28 When he had gone indoors, the blind men came to him, and he asked them, "Do you believe that I am able to do this?" "Yes, Lord," they replied. 29 Then he touched their eyes and said, "According to your faith will it be done to you";  30 and their sight was restored. Jesus warned them sternly, "See that no one knows about this."  31 But they went out and spread the news about him all over that region.

NIV

The first interesting point to notice is these two blind men addressed Jesus as the Son of David. It was the thought according to Isaiah the things that Jesus did indicate that the Son of David meant the same as calling Him the Messiah. How these two blind men perceived that Jesus was the Messiah, by calling Him the Son of David is not told to us. However, news of all the healings and teachings of Jesus had spread to the people. We do not know, but it seems these two blind men were very near the house of the ruler where Jesus raised the girl from the dead. Surely there was quite a buzz among the people about what Jesus had just done. Hence these two surely thought that if Jesus could raise a child from the dead, he could restore their sight. As they called out to him to have mercy on them, he asked them if they believed he was able to restore their sight. A simple, “Yes, Lord” was all it took. Jesus made it clear, just as he did to that woman who touched the hem of his garment, their healing would be done according to their faith. We must see that these two men had the faith, they believed and that is the reason they received their sight. Yes, Jesus could simply walk by all sorts of people and touch them, healing whatever infirmity they had. He could heal everyone anytime he wanted to whether they asked or not. There are no bounds to His authority or His sovereignty. We think of the lame man by the pool and how Jesus intervened in his life. Jesus approached him and asked him if he wanted to be healed. But here, as with many cases, Jesus waited for these men to ask. When they did, He simply asked if they believed and they did, so according to their faith, Jesus restored their sight, just with a word. In this case, he did touch them, he did not put mud on their eyes, but just spoke the word and they were healed. What we learn from this is our need to believe. Maybe the reason we are not healed as fast as Jesus heals is that we have doubts because we have not seen such miracles happen very often or at all. Is it because we just do not believe He is able? Yet, from a personal experience we know He has healed us before, so why then not now? We know He is able, we believe He is able and as we have seen before, we know He is willing. But at the same time, as we age, which is the natural course of events with this perishable, corruptible body, though wear and tear it begins to fail us. Because of being the descendent of Adam, our bodies are not immortal but will perish, we will die from something, if not simply old age as our bodies wear out. So then, it is possible that some problems of this body should not be healed which if Jesus always healed everything within our bodies all the time, every time, then we would never face the death of this body. At some point, certain things are just going to happen and perhaps that is the way it is meant to be. Still, Jesus could heal us, but even if he doesn’t, His grace is all we need. His divine influence upon our hearts, and how that influence is reflected in our lives is all we really need, and physical healing is simply icing on the cake.