Jesus is ready and willing to answer your prayers. As you approach Him in faith, telling Him your needs, Jesus will answer, “Don’t worry, just believe; I’ll come and work the miracle.”
Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, dreadfully tormented.” And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” (Matthew 8:5-7, NKJV)
For me the most important chapter in the Bible on healing is Matthew 8. Jesus came down from the mountain and thousands followed Him. A leper came and said, “If You want to, You can heal me!” Jesus said, “I want to!” and it was done. Then Jesus came into Capernaum and a Roman centurion came to Him, “Lord, I have a sick servant at home.” Jesus said, “I’ll come to your house,” He said, “Don’t, I’m not a good man,” and I don’t suppose he was if he was a Roman centurion! But the officer said the most amazing thing, “One word from You and my servant will be healed! I’m a man under authority, an officer in the most powerful army in the world. I have authority from those above, and over those under me. My men obey me! Jesus, I recognise in You the same authority.”
The centurion’s authority was over men - Jesus’ authority was over the devil, sin and sickness. Jesus is set apart, because He is declared to be the Son of God with Power. God demonstrates this today by miracles, by signs, by wonders! I know this to be true, because God has healed me miraculously from cancer twice!
He came to His own… But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name. (John 1:11-12, NKJV)
Jesus, the Son of God, came to meet with ordinary people like you and me. He came as one of us. He is not distant and uncaring, rather He is gentle and kind. He understands our emotions and frailties. The Jesus we worship today is the Jesus of the Bible. If He were to walk into your town today, He would want to fellowship with you. Jesus was approachable to all; He didn’t discriminate.
In this story, Jesus was amongst His own people when He was approached by this Roman centurion. At the time, Israel was an occupied country, tightly controlled by the Roman Empire. The centurion was a military man, he would not normally seek help from the people he conquered: his job was to keep the nation suppressed, to resist uprisings. The centurion had access to the resources of the Roman empire; his servant would have been treated by Roman doctors. This centurion and Jesus didn’t speak the same language, and they certainly weren’t of the same religion. Yet this centurion recognised there was something different about Jesus; he knew Jesus had power to heal the sick. And Jesus, seeing the desperation of the centurion, immediately offered to go and heal the servant. Can you imagine the scene, a powerful centurion pleading before a carpenter from Nazareth? - It was normally the other way round!
The Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians about something similar: ‘At that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenant of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ.’ (2:12-13, NKJV.)
You and I are in the same situation as the Roman centurion, in need of a miracle but separated from Jesus. Jesus did not refuse the centurion, and He does not refuse us. Jesus, rather than keeping us at a distance, has bridged the divide and brought us near to God.
Jesus is the same yesterday today and forever. (Hebrews 13:8, NKJV)
The wonderful thing is this: Jesus offered to follow the centurion to his house, and He offers to come to yours. He is ready and willing to answer your prayer. The Bible is very simple: Jesus works miracles; Jesus can heal the sick. Imagine Jesus is sitting next to you. He asks, “What is your problem” and you tell Him all your sorrows. He responds, “That is absolutely no problem to Me. I’ll work the miracle. I’ll heal you.” It really is as easy as that with Jesus. All you have to do is recognise who Jesus is; even the centurion came before Him and called Jesus ‘Lord’, for he recognised that Jesus had power and authority on earth from God.
‘A New Thing’ used by kind permission of www.vinesong.com