What Does Jesus say?

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO LUKE

WHAT DOES JESUS SAY

Luke 7:1-10

7:1 When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. 2 There a centurion's servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die. 3 The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. 4 When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, "This man deserves to have you do this, 5 because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue." 6 So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: "Lord, don't trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. 7 That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed.   8 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." 9 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, "I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel."  10 Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.

NIV

We are very familiar with this narrative regarding the servant of the Roman centurion. What is amazing is although this man was a Roman rather than a Jew, whom Jesus came to, his faith was greater than anyone’s in all of Israel. That is odd, in that Jesus had already picked his twelve, men who believed in him, who saw him heal many people, who heard all his teachings, and we would think already knew, or at least had the idea that Jesus was the Christ, the long-awaited Messiah. But this centurion had even greater faith than the twelve, for Jesus made it clear that he had not found such great faith even in Israel. Of course, there were the Pharisees, the teachers of the law, and the Sadducees who refused to accept Jesus for who he was and, in fact, were trying to find a way to have him killed. But all the people who came to Jesus to be healed, or the man with a withered hand who Jesus healed in the synagogue on the Sabbath, or the leper who asked Jesus if he were willing, and Jesus told him, “I am” and not just spoke to him, but touched the leper, making him clean. Yet, none of them, not one of them had such faith as this centurion, according to Jesus. What does this tell us about ourselves? We can look like we have faith. We can talk the talk about having faith. But are we walking the talk about having faith? We say we believe Jesus; we believe the Bible is the inspired word of God, we trust it is true and all that Jesus said is true. We can even look like we have faith, and act like we have faith, some of us even come to be anointed because we have belief, but none of us can truly know another person’s faith, for we only look at the outside, while Jesus looks at our hearts. He is the only one who can truly judge if we have faith, great faith, as the centurion demonstrated. It does not even matter how much we confess we have faith. What only matters is how Jesus sees our faith. What does Jesus say about our faith?