Scripture
7Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.” 8But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 9I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.” 10When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel! Matthew 8:7-10
Observation
The Gospel’s are filled with miraculous moments where the crowds are amazed with Jesus. There are only two recorded incidents of Jesus being amazed with us. The first being here where Jesus is amazed at the faith of this Roman Centurion. This Gentile was showing the Jewish people what real faith looks like and it stopped Jesus in his tracks, literally. Jesus stopped what He was doing and told everyone looking on to take a good hard look at how true faith releases true authority that releases the miraculous. The Greek word for “amazed” means to marvel, to wonder, to have admiration for. I know we feel this about Jesus, but can you imagine Jesus feeling this about us? The second place Jesus is mentioned marveling is for a very different reason: “3Then they scoffed, “He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And his sisters live right here among us.” They were deeply offended and refused to believe in him. 4Then Jesus told them, “A prophet is honored everywhere except in his own hometown and among his relatives and his own family.” 5And because of their unbelief, he couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place his hands on a few sick people and heal them. 6And he was amazed at their unbelief.” (Mk 6:3-6). Talk about missing the forest for the family tree. The crowd couldn’t see past what they knew to be true to see The Truth right in front of them. Jesus was amazed, He marveled at the lack of faith in his own hometown friends and family. Whereas an outsider Gentile believed a miracle could happen long distance all these insiders couldn’t even believe that Jesus could do a miracle right in front of them.
Application
Each of us will amaze Jesus today in one of two ways. He will either be amazed by our belief or by our unbelief, by our faith or our offense, our impossibly big prayers or our prayerlessness. The saying goes, “familiarity breads contempt.” The folks Jesus grew up with were familiar with Him and couldn’t see the Messiah in the carpenter’s son. I was talking about this with Aaron Betschel and he pointed out how most of the amazing things he has seen God do have been in unfamiliar settings such as mission trips or stepping out in faith. Whereas, he gets conformable in his routines at work and home and doesn’t really expect big things. We realized together that intentionality was a key difference between the Roman Centurion and the Hometown folks. The Gentile left his familiar setting to seek Jesus out for a miracle. The hometown folks were right where they had always been when Jesus walked in they weren’t seeking Jesus out and therefore couldn’t see Him as anything else. If I want to amaze Jesus today with my faith I must seek the miraculous in the mundane. I must intentionally seek out what Jesus is doing in the room, even if it’s a room I walk into every single day.
Prayer
“So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer.” (2 Cor. 5:16). Forgive me for seeing situations and circumstances from a worldly point of view. I don’t ever want to grow familiar with what You do and the way You move. I don’t want to put You in a box or limit my faith in You to what I’ve seen before when You want to do so much more. My mission field today is right here in San Marcos, my neighborhood, my church, my local schools. I’m familiar with all of these areas but I’m going to walk in the authority You’ve given me through Your Son Jesus Christ!
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