Faith of the Centurion — Faith — Stylin' Granny Mama

Last week we took a look at a Biblical example of a man who had great faith. The faith of the Centurion in Jesus, to heal his servant, was so strong it made Jesus marvel. This week I would like look at our own faith. Do you have faith like the Centurion? Do I? If not, what can we do differently that will cause Jesus to marvel at our faith? Today, I want to look at a few of the verses where Jesus speaks of faith, then I want to compare a living faith to the development of a child

This first quote from Matthew 17 occurred shortly after Jesus had cast a demon out of a man’s son. The disciples had tried to cast out the demon, but were unsuccessful.

“19 Then the disciples came to Jesus privately and said, “Why could we not drive it out?”
20 And He *said to them, “Because of the littleness of your faith; for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible to you.
21 [But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”]”

— Matthew 17:19-21 (NASB)

These are mustard seeds. They are tiny. Jesus compares faith to this tiny seed. He says if we have faith, even this small, we can move mountains. Wow! Just wow! The fact that I have never moved a mountain, puts my faith to shame. Obviously, God doesn’t want us throwing mountains all over creation, but you get the point. We don’t have to have a mountain of faith, to do amazing things in Jesus name.

“13 And they were bringing children to Him so that He might touch them; but the disciples rebuked them.
14 But when Jesus saw this, He was indignant and said to them, “Permit the children to come to Me; do not hinder them; for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.
15 Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.”
16 And He took them in His arms and began blessing them, laying His hands on them.”

— Mark 10:13-16 (NASB)

In this passage, Jesus becomes indignant with the disciples for keeping the children from coming to HIm. Once again, I am amazed by the emotion exhibited by our Lord. The word, indignant basically means becoming angry because of something unjust. Jesus must have felt that the children were not begin treated justly, because they were being kept away from him, as though they didn’t have as much right to talk to Him and be near Him as the adults did.

Jesus then goes on to make an important point, which I have brought up before. “Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the Kingdom of God like a child will not enter it at all.” Jesus just made a statement about faith that is often overlooked. We must have child-like faith to enter God’s kingdom. What exactly does that mean?

Children go through a certain progression in their development that coincides in the progression of our faith. Let’s take a look.

1 - Look & Listen - When a baby is first born, they experience a sudden assault on their senses. The sounds, sights and feelings outside the warmth and comfort of the womb must be overwhelming. As the tiny one grows they begin to use these senses to learn about their environment. They hear their mother’s voice and see her face. As the days pass, their eyesight and hearing becomes more clear and they begin to find pleasure in looking at their mother’s face and hearing her voice as she sings and talks to them. Looking and listening become a way to learn and grow.

In the same way, when we accept Christ as our Savior, we must look and listen. We need to become familiar with His face and His voice. The Holy Spirit gives us the ability to see God in His word, the Bible, and in His creation. He also gives us the ability to hear Him through the Scriptures, Biblical teaching, personal devotions, music and even through the singing of the birds in the early morning. However, we need to actually look and listen. We need to learn the lines of His face, the color of His eyes, the wave of his hair and the sound of His voice.

It has been scientifically proven that if a child does not bond with his or her mother early on, the child will undergo certain psychological impediments as he or she develops. We are God’s creation. The movement of humanity away from God developed when Adam and Eve sinned. That inability to bond with our Heavenly Father has impeded our ability to develop psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually. It is only after we traverse that gap, by walking the way of the cross, that we see His face, and hear His voice clearly.

2 - Reach - As baby grows, he/she begins to reach for mom’s face. I can remember playfully chewing on both of my daughters’ hands when they were little, as they began to smile, and coo. Babies will reach towards toys, and other brightly colored objects, continuing their path of exploration and discovery.

Our faith grows and solidifies as we reach for God. Reaching involves beginning to get outside our comfort zones. Many of you grew up in the church. You were used to hearing the songs and prayers, and had the example of others in relationship with the unseen God. For someone outside the church, becoming a Christian is much like the birth of a baby, bringing them into a world of light and sound that they are not used to. Reaching for God may seem a little odd, but it becomes quite natural as we grow in our faith and relationship with Christ.

How do we reach out to Him? Reaching is about focus. When my grandson was just learning to crawl, I was reintroduced to the focus that a little child can have. He would see something across the room and immediately fixate on it. Then, as he gained more mobility, he would scuttle himself towards the prize. Nothing could deter him, once he was focused on that thing he wanted. I know my girls did this too, but being a grandmother allowed me more time to watch that little guy develop. It was beautiful the way the Lord spoke to my heart through that tiny boy.

This is exactly what reaching means, to focus and yearn for that prize that is across the room. As a Christian, my focus is to be Jesus. I reach for Him as I study, read, pray, thank and rejoice.

“16 Rejoice always;
17 pray without ceasing;
18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
19 Do not quench the Spirit;
20 do not despise prophetic utterances.
21 But examine everything carefully; hold fast to that which is good;
22 abstain from every [m]form of evil.”

— 1 Thessalonians 5:16-22 (NASB)

3 - Crawl, Walk, Run - From the point of reaching to the actions of crawling, walking and running, it is a very short time period. Look at how much a child develops in the first year and a half of his/her life. It is amazing! They go from being totally dependent to having the desire to be fiercely independent.

As we grow in our faith in Christ, we mature learning to see Jesus’ face and hear His voice. We deepen our understanding of Him, and His desires for us as we reach for Him. Once we are mature, we don’t stop moving forward, but our development changes. We no longer have the immature faith of a new believer. Now we have been through hard times. It is in the difficulties that our faith is challenged. When tragedy comes we need to run to Jesus. We may be so tired we can only walk. Or we may be on our faces and the best we can do is crawl. Each time we reach for Him our faith becomes more real and more solid. Each time we remember His promises, our faith deepens and broadens. Every day that we focus on Him the Spirit works in our lives making our faith live.

The worst thing we can do is become stagnant. If a child suddenly decided to no longer crawl, he would never learn to stand. If he/she never stood, they would never walk, and if they never learned to walk, they would never know the pure joy and delight of being able to run.

Let us run with Him.

“1 Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
2 fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
3 For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.”

— Hebrews 12:1-3 (NASB)

I was praying for clarity this morning as I thought about this post. I wanted to have some semblance of organization to my thoughts, as well as a sort of progression to the traits as we look at them. I am definitely a picture learner. It helps me to see a picture in my mind of what I am learning. That picture gives me the ability to remember the concepts better. At my age, anything that helps me remember is good. Ha, ha.

As I prayed, it seemed the Holy Spirit was impressing on me, the idea that Faith is the precursor to all the other Godly traits. Not only did it seem a Spiritual impression, but logically it makes sense. Without faith, we cannot know God, otherwise why would Jesus repeatedly refer to faith when interacting with people. Let’s look at a situation involving our Lord.

“5 And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him,
6 and saying, “Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented.”
7 Jesus *said to him, “I will come and heal him.”
8 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.
9 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.”
10 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.
11 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;
12 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.”
13 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.”

— Matthew 8:5-13 (NASB)

In order to understand the wonderfulness of this passage, we need to be clear on what is happening. The Centurion was an officer in the Roman army. He was a man of authority. He probably was fairly well off and he fully understood how things worked within the hierarchy of the Roman kingdom.

Obviously, he was a man of compassion, because he was deeply concerned for his servant who lay “paralyzed at home, and fearfully tormented.” He didn’t just come and ask, the passage says, “…imploring Him…” We do not know what the servant’s illness was. It could have been anything, including demon possession, but whatever it was came on fairly suddenly, and could have been deadly. Having been on the receiving end of malaria, I understand the severity of an illness that leaves you flat on your back and hallucinating, due to a fever, that when once measured at a clinic in Africa ,was over 105. However, it is clear that this servant was important to his master. Doesn’t this say something about this man? He probably could have gone out and purchased another servant without any thought, but he cared for this one.

Image by Stefan Schweihofer from Pixabay

In addition to being a man of authority and a man of compassion, this Centurion was curious. If you know your Bible, you know that many times when Jesus was present, there were large crowds. Often these crowds were docile and listened intently to hear what Jesus had to say. Other times, the crowds got a bit rowdy, especially if there were Jewish religious leaders present who did not agree with what Jesus was teaching. I am speculating that Roman soldiers were often milling about, just to make sure the peace was being kept. This particular man must have been watching with some amount of intensity, because he knew what Jesus was teaching and doing. He observed how Jesus handled the people and how they responded to him.

The next characteristic of this man, is humility. He didn’t seem to feel dumb approaching Jesus. He just did it. He came to Jesus and immediately let Him know the problem he was desiring help for. How many times have I been afraid to speak up or try something new because I was afraid? More often than I’d like to confess. Pride, and the desire to not be uncomfortable, often keeps us from learning new things, meeting new people and experiencing life to the fullest. This Centurion was probably not accustomed to asking for help. He was a man who ordered others around. I can imagine the plan that went through his head as he contemplated walking up to Jesus and posing his desire for his servant’s healing. He didn’t hesitate. He just did it.

The Centurion shows great respect to Jesus. He knew the tension that existed between the Jews and the Gentile Romans. Under the circumstances it is understandable why there would be tension between the conqueror, and the conquered. This man approached Jesus with this thought in mind. When Jesus offered to come to the Centurion’s home, the man responded, “Lord, I am not worthy for you to come under my roof…” Not only did he understand the cultural differences, but he honored Jesus as a man on equal footing, or even at a higher position of authority than himself. This proclamation brings us to the focal point of the passage.

The Centurion had faith. He knew Jesus could heal his servant without even being at his home. What an amazing statement of faith. HIs faith and declaration of it was so outstanding, that it says “…when Jesus heard this, He marveled….” I find that so fascinating. The Son of God, marveled. Would it be that my faith could be as straight forward and sure as the faith of this Roman Centurion. I would love for my faith to make the King of Heaven and Earth marvel! How about you? Jesus goes on to commend the man’s faith before the crowd. He says, “…Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.” This heathen man’s faith was the stepping stone for all Gentiles to partake in the salvation from sin given freely by Jesus.

I love this passage. It is a reminder of how important our faith is. Next week we will look more specifically at what having faith means to us in today’s world. Have a marvelous week and keep the faith!

Traits of a Godly Person: Faith - Part 2

Traits of a Godly Person: Faith - Part 1