Lord, Just Speak Your Word
Many of my requests to God have changed from - Lord will you touch this or God will you reach down from Heaven and place your hands on this person or situation or Holy Spirit please move in this issue to - King Jesus just say/speak your Word over this. Not that the other ways mentioned are a lesser way of God to move on our behalf, just this is where I am in my faith journey with the Lord right now.
Speaking is all God has to do - be it a resolution of an issue, reward of obedience or gift from His unconditional love. Knowing this, believing this and walking in this is based from The Faith of the Centurion in Matthew 8:5-13.
I hope I get to meet that centurion one day in Heaven. I desire to thank him for his inspiration of faith and much more as I give him a long, uncomfortable bear hug.
The Scripture paints a sense of eagerness and possibly desperation by the centurion with Jesus just entering the city limits and the centurion meeting Him there - "When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him asking for help."
The next word is important because this man asking for help in society is a high ranking soldier, the commander of one hundred roman warriors. His leading word was "Lord" or Master. Right from the beginning of the centurion's address of Jesus, the officer recognizes authority by declaring the Rabbi's title - Master.
The rest of the centurion's statement holds very interesting information also. Now that the ears of Jesus are perked because He hears this centurion call Him Master, the officer now declares not his wife, not his children, nor any member of his immediate or extended family is sick or in need but his "servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly."
I am now going to make some assumptions that are not based directly on the Bible saying so, but on observation or reading between the lines. How did this important military man know to come to Jesus in the first place?
Whether the knowledge of Jesus' miracles was by trusted sources to the centurion or by first hand experience as he traveled the countryside, other measures evidently did not or could not work for his servant - "paralyzed, suffering terribly". So the officer with a heart, his faith and recognition of authority remembered Jesus.
Now why in the world would Jesus ask this question? He asked the centurion, "Shall I come and heal him?" If I were the centurion, and were not so sold on the authority of Jesus, I would have responded sarcastically by saying something like - No Jesus, I just want you to stay in the street and ramble on and tell me everything is going to be alright in the sweet by-and-by and not visit. Of course this question was in direct response to where this officer was in his faith journey and the way he began his address of Jesus - "Lord". Plus, how did Jesus know the servant was a "him" when the centurion had not revealed that information that we know of? Jesus was already beginning to work and see the afflicted far off.
The response of the centurion was qualitative. He not only spoke about the authority that Jesus possessed but the kind of person and authority that Jesus was and had by using the word "deserve".
"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. For I 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."
I do not hear of any other account of an official or military commander saying to a Rabbi or High Priest - "I do not deserve to have you come under my roof." This was the centurion's qualitative authority statment if ever I have heard or read one. Then he proceeded to support that statement with his recognition of authority in Christ by being a man of authority himself.
I imagine amazed was an experience few-and-far-between for Jesus, but we see here that this centurion's decision to trust Jesus with the health of his servant through not only faith but "great faith" in Christ's authority over all things was amazing.
"When Jesus heard this, He was amazed and said to those following Him, 'Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith.'"
The result? "Then Jesus said to the centurion, 'Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.' And his servant was healed at that moment."
I feel confident believers in Christ may ask God to touch, move or answer in a variety of ways and those methods be pleasing to the Lord. I can see Jesus observing our faith and saying to the Christian "Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would." But just as Yahweh spoke creation into existence and here the centurion trusts in The Word of God made flesh, Christ Jesus, so I will continue to pray - Lord, Just Speak Your Word.
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