Great Faith
Matthew 8:10, 13 “When Jesus heard it, He marveled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel!”. . . Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour.”
Faith lives at the very center of Christianity and at the very center of Christian living. Hebrews 11:1 says, “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” A writer, Jeremy Myers by name, said this: “Biblical faith takes present-day possession of things not yet seen with our eyes but hoped for in the future. What God has revealed in His Word becomes our inner reality today. Rather than looking at life with our earthly eyes, faith sees through the lens of God’s promises.”
He goes on to say, “A biblical definition of faith reaches beyond mere belief—the simple acknowledgment that God exists—into the realm of trust. Genuine faith involves abandoning all human reliance on self-efforts and placing total dependence upon God’s character, His actions, and His promises, as revealed in His Word…The difference between great faith and little faith is not one of quantity. Great faith does not have lots and lots of faith, whereas little faith has hardly any. It’s not about percentages and degrees of faith. Great faith is not some higher level of conviction. It is believing something that is harder to believe, something that is contrary to what most people believe.”
The great faith of the centurion was a faith that believed in the power of Jesus to accomplish
something which no one else believed could happen. And Jesus saw that and He marveled. Sometimes it is easy to have faith in things which are not hard to believe, things which everyone pretty much believes. It is easy to have faith in God when things are pretty much going like we want them to go. But the question is, ‘How much faith do we have when our world is topsy-turvy; when everything seems to be chaos; when circumstances are negative and trying and troubling? How much faith do we have when nobody else seems to believe?’
To believe Jesus and what He says; to believe in His power and authority to accomplish His will; to believe even when everything seems contrary to all of this; to believe when it seems He doesn’t care, or isn’t working, or hasn’t done anything; to believe when others don’t; to believe God’s promises when it seems ridiculous to do so; to believe the truth of God’s Word when all seems dark; - that is great faith! That is the faith Jesus saw in the centurion. That is the faith which will cause Jesus to marvel!