Jesus commends the Roman (Gentile) centurion who had faith in His authority. This passage teaches us that healing or miracles is as much a matter of authority as they are of power. God has the ability to make anyone well, but does He have the authority to do so?
We come back again to the issue of who is king of us? He who is king is the one who has the authority. If God is not king of our lives, if we are instead or someone or something else, then they are the ones whose authority we are under, not God. We have free will; we can choose whose authority to be under. If we are under God’s authority, then when He says to a sickness or a disease, “Go,” it goes. But if we have chosen — by rejecting the LORD’s kingship, or right to command us and have us obey Him — to have something else be god over us, then that something else has authority over us, not God.
God is not a respecter of persons! He is not capricious or arbitrary! He does not blithely choose to heal one and leave another in agony. We have a lot to do with it also. When someone said the Christian life can be summed up in two words, trust and obey, boy were they right. Have faith (trust) in God our Abba (daddy), and King, enough to obey Him!
I love the story of the sinful woman who breaks her costly alabaster flask of fragrant oil to anoint Jesus’ feet after she has washed His feet with her tears and dried them with her hair. God is so good. He freely forgives us when we have nothing with which to repay our debt to Him, whether we have owed Him 50 (a righteous man) or 500 (a sinful man).
It says in Proverbs that Love covers a multitude of sins (Pro 10:12). He who has been forgiven of much, loves much! That love is so precious to God! Jesus accepted the woman’s tears and ministering to Him that she did. He did not dismiss her or cast her aside! And when others would deride her ministry to Him, He Himself defended her!
The only problem the Pharisees had, was in not seeing how much God had forgiven them. They esteemed their own self righteousness so much, that they perceived God did not have much to forgive them of, and they loved Him little. Let’s not be like them!
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