Jesus Took Our Sins And Gave Us His Righteousness

We can’t do it at all. We can’t force or manipulate people to be changed. But we can believe that even one word of Jesus can completely heal people from the inside out. Whatever is paralyzing people or causing them terrible suffering, we need to pray that Jesus will just say the word, and the person we love will be completely healed. This is the kind of faith that pleases Jesus.

So how does Jesus respond? Read verse 10. Usually Jesus isn’t amazed by anything. But he is truly amazed by this centurion’s great faith. Often Jesus rebuked his disciples for having so little faith. There were so many religious Jews around him, but their faith was only cultural, and they were spiritually complacent. It’s a kind of stinging rebuke that a Roman centurion had better faith than all the spiritually proud Jews in Israel. Jesus wants all his followers to learn from the great faith of the centurion.

And he doesn’t stop there; he goes on. Read verses 11,12. Jesus is warning the Jews that God’s kingdom is going to be filled with Gentiles from all around the world, whereas many Jews who feel entitled and superior are going to find themselves thrown out into the darkness. It reminds us of the Bible verse: “God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble” (Jas4:6; Pr3:34). The man with leprosy and the centurion are examples of those who are social outcasts, but humble, humble enough to come to Jesus and ask his help. Jesus is also warning complacent Christians, people who assume that they’re good with God, even though they don’t really care about others or struggle to have faith in Jesus. In the end they’ll find out too late that they’ve made the worst mistake.

The third healing Matthew records is of another kind of overlooked person. Read verses 14,15. Again, Jesus is personal and uses his touch to heal. And the person he’s healing is Peter’s mother-in-law. She may have been in bed with a fever because she’d become so upset after Peter left his good-paying fishing job to follow Jesus, leaving her daughter so vulnerable. In any case, Jesus considers this woman important. He shows her his love and his healing power. Her fever leaves her, and she begins to serve Jesus. We can’t force people to serve Jesus, but when we experience Jesus’ love and healing, we want to serve him.

Jesus’ healing continues. Read verse 16. Demon-possessed people are another kind of impossible people to help. They’re scary. Nobody can control them. People run away from them. But Jesus didn’t. Even though it was evening, getting dark outside and Jesus was tired, he kept on healing. Again Matthew tells us that Jesus “drove out the spirits with a word.” The power of Jesus’ word can even drive out evil spirits from people. It says Jesus healed “all the sick,” missing no one. There was no disease Jesus could not heal. Jesus worked past his limitations. He showed his healing love even when it was inconvenient and intrusive to him. It showed his true colors: he really cared for people.