From my Kingdom of Heaven study
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Luke 7:9 When Jesus heard these things, he marveled at him, and turning to the crowd that followed him, said, “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith.” ESV
I absolutely love this story. It’s about a highly-respected centurion who sends elders among the Jews to Jesus, in a request to heal the centurion’s sick servant. Then as Jesus is on his way, the centurion decide that Jesus doesn’t even need to trouble himself to make the trip; if Jesus would only speak the word, the centurion would be healed.
Observe the centurion’s words: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you come under my roof. Therefore I did not presume to come to you. But say the word, and let my servant be healed. For I too am a man set under authority, with soldiers under me: and I say to one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” (v. 6-8)
This response so impressed Jesus that he said he had never seen such faith. In fact, he marveled at this faith.
Picture that for a minute. Jesus marveled. I wouldn’t think that the all-knowing Son of God would be impressed by much. After all, he knows our hearts. But yet, he still contains the sensitivity to marvel at certain things.
It made me think, do I have a faith that would make Jesus marvel?
I don’t know about you, but I want my heart to impress my Savior. I want to please him. I want him to smile when he looks at my heart. Even though he’ll see all the yucky stuff, I want him to see that even through all that, there is something worth marveling over.
What can we do to increase our faith?
Romans 12:3 tells us that God has allotted to each a measure of faith. When the disciples asked Jesus to “Increase our faith”, he tells of faith like a mustard seed could move mountains. I’m troubled at my use with just a mustard seed sized faith.
It is a challenge, but one I’d like to take on! @ russellvillesbc I know most people think of the mustard seed as the size that is important, but a few years back I did a study on the mustard seed. Do you know how enduring a mustard seed is? It cannot be changed. It is one of the few seeds that science can’t do much with. They haven’t been able to make a hybrid. radiation didn’t affect it either. To me that is amazing! That speaks more to me than the size. It’s unwavering, unchanging, and enduring all things! wow! I wan’t that type of faith!
@Midon, now I want to know more about your study of the mustard seed!
After talking about this last night I did some more research. Another neat thing about mustard. It isn’t affected by the plants surrounding it. A lot of plants change when a strong plant is beside it. For instance hot peppers making tomatoes hot, I had a instance with this last year where my bell peppers were right next to my habanero. It turned my bell peppers into little fiery funky looking peppers that were hot! It was crazy. There are also time when say walnut trees are near vegetable or plants and they actually take on the toxins from it and it is produced in its fruit. I thought this was another very interesting characteristic of the mustard seed. 🙂
Midon, this is all so neat to think about! Strong, impermeable, incorruptible. it also makes me think not only about the characteristics but that Jesus used this analogy centuries before we would discover these characteristics, most likely. Thank you for sharing!!