"...Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.”
8 But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. 9 I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.”
10 When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!..."
In this story we find two of the most needed tools of ministry if we desire to effectively minister to others: proper understanding of authority and faith. We need a right understanding of authority because when we do ministry we are, by definition, entering into spiritual warfare against a powerful enemy who can easily overwhelm us and overpower us if we think we can do any ministry in our own strength and by our own authority. How often we hear people say, "I went here, and I said that, and I cast out a demon, and I healed someone who was sick, and I made these plans, and I had this idea, and I, I, I, I..." What a foolish and dangerous game. Jesus himself said that apart from the Father, He did nothing.
When we engage the rulers, the authorities, the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, it is not a matter of overpowering them or outsmarting them or somehow working up enough faith in our ability to use our spiritual giftings and anointings effectively. They have us beat in all those departments. After the resurrection, however, Jesus announced, "All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me."
This means for us today that although our enemy is powerful, he has no authority. When we are "in Christ" ministering to others by the power of His Spirit, operating in His authority, relying on His guidance and wisdom, our ministry will be powerful and effective and the Kingdom of God will grow. The enemy does not have permission to overpower us if we are truly operating under the covering of Jesus' authority. On our own, though, we are literally on our own.
The second part of this is faith. True faith is not an act of blindly and desperately working up an emotional belief that God will do whatever I command or desire -that would be more like witchcraft. Witchcraft (even witchcraft using "Christian" terms and vocabulary) has no efffect on God and does not compel Him to do our bidding. The Word of Faith movement. the Name It, Claim It crowd, the Declaration people are misguided. While our words may have consequences and we should be aware of how we speak, faith is not something we work up to make things happen -faith is a firm trust in the goodness and trustworthiness of God. We have faith in God because we trust His character and nature to be good. And if we are walking in communion with Him, walking in the Spirit instead of the flesh, we can trust His guidance and inner promptings. Our faith is in Him.
This story of the Roman Centurion demonstrates this principle. He had observed the goodness and compassion of Jesus, and recognized Christ's authority, so he made a reasonable request, trusting that goodness and authority. And Kingdom ministry happened.
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