Today's Passage: Luke 7

There are a lot of stories of Jesus healing people, but the common denominator is always faith.  Jesus always preforms the miracle of healing because of someones faith in his abilities.  Here in verses 1-10 we find that the Centurion's faith was a little different than the faith others had showed to Jesus.

Verse 9 says,

When Jesus heard this (the Centurion's faith), 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.”

This is one of only two time in scripture that it says Jesus was "amazed".  The other was in Mark 6:6 when Jesus said He was amazed at the unbelief or lack of faith among the people of His home town, Nazareth.  So why was the Centurion's faith so amazing?  Because it was true faith.  In Hebrews 11 we read that "faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see".  The Centurion had the utmost confidence in Jesus and that produced assurance in him of what he didn't have to see.  The Centurion truly believed and Jesus blessed him because of it.

I think we should contrast these two questions for ourselves:  How often do we truly believe that God will move in a situation?  How often do we just assume that things will work themselves out?  One of these is faith and the other is carelessness.  God wants us to be alertly dependent on Him not blindly expectant that He will work everything out.  Everything God does is to make His glory and power known.  It's when His actions are dismissed as luck or chance that He stops moving in our lives.