Jesus Heals Many and Forgives Sins

Prayer Practice

Spoken Prayer – Pray aloud, asking God to speak to you through your reading. Praise God for giving us His word. Invite the Spirit to grow your faith and live with the hopeful expectation we read about in this passage.

DAILY READING

Luke 7:1-50

REFLECTION

You Have Longed for Sweet Peace and for Faith to Increase

 by Dan Kidd

Four stories. Four distinct encounters. Taken together they portray a variety of perspectives surrounding the enigmatic, itinerant teacher and prophet everyone across Israel had been hearing about, named Jesus. Remarkably, those most likely to anticipate who and what Jesus was—John the Baptizer among them—seem least certain of him. On the other hand, the Roman centurion and sin-soaked woman, we are told, identified Jesus exactly. How peculiar. 

First is the story of the centurion; a Roman who had heard the murmurs and rumblings of a healing prophet—a man with authority. He sent his servant to Jesus, and having had such faith in Jesus, he asked for Jesus’ healing from afar. 

How had the centurion come to have such faith in Jesus? Perhaps he’d heard a story like our next one: wherein Jesus, his heart broken for a grieving mother, resurrected her son from his coffin bier. Certainly, those who witnessed this were awestruck and led to worship God. They identified Jesus as “a great prophet among us,” and said, “God has come to help his people.” How right they were! 

And then there’s John the Baptist (of whom Jesus says “among those born of women there is no one greater”) who found himself shackled and destined to die in prison for daring to tell the truth about Herod’s sinfulness. Surely we can appreciate his position. After all of this, John just wants to hear it from Jesus’ mouth that his life’s work (the work that would cost him his life) had not been in vain. Jesus does not disappoint. He shows John’s messengers that the Kingdom is at hand. 

Finally, there’s our sin-soaked woman and Simon the Pharisee. Jesus explained to Simon (and us) that this woman recognized her profound need for liberation and righteousness, and this led her to the feet of Christ. Simon, who had himself neglected to treat Jesus to the traditional hospitalities common for guests, was surprised—maybe even scandalized by this woman’s humiliating display. But she had a determined faith that Jesus could set her back to rights. That is exactly what he did. 

Do you see in these stories the variety of ways people have faith, receive faith, or act in faith? Which of these characters do you most relate to today? Are you emboldened in your faith by the stories of Jesus’ restoring work? Has your faith been recently bolstered by witnessing firsthand the Kingdom work of the Holy Spirit? Are you currently with Simon, in a season of cynicism? Are you longing for a word from Jesus that will renew your faith, or are you overcome by your conviction to fall before the feet of Jesus? 

However you are today, pray for your faith—it is after all a gift from God. And thank God for being so very worthy of our faith!