What an amazing compassionate heart the centurion in Matthew 8 had for his servant. In Jesus time a centurion was a captain in the Roman army who was responsible for commanding one hundred men. Under Roman law, a master had the right to kill his servant/slave if he became ill or injured and could no longer perform his work.

In Matthew 8:5-13 we read the story of this centurion who comes to Jesus pleading on behalf of his servant. Even though this centurion was with the Roman army, he understood the spiritual authority of Jesus and believed He could heal his servant by speaking and commanding a word. This centurion knew about authority because when he spoke or gave a command, his men followed and acted upon his own spoken word.

This centurion said to Jesus that He didn’t have to come to his house to heal his servant; he knew Jesus could heal just by speaking to the situation. Jesus told everyone around Him that this centurion had great faith. The Bible says that Jesus marveled at this man’s faith and that He had not seen this type of faith in all of Israel. Now that is a statement! I believe Jesus is saying that throughout the entire Jewish nation, no one had the faith of this centurion who wasn’t even Jewish—he was Roman. The Romans during this timeframe didn’t think too highly of the Jewish nation.

Would Jesus say that we have great faith to believe for healing? Do we fully understand the healing power of Jesus today? The centurion knew that Jesus had the authority to command healing to take place outside of His immediate presence. The centurion showed that his great faith was in the authority and the spoken Word of Jesus. He knew that Jesus could heal not only through His laying on of hands, but also through His Word.

Today, we don’t have the physical presence of Jesus, but we do have His Word. If you feel you don’t have great faith like this centurion, get into the Word of God and find out what the centurion had heard about Jesus that gave him this great faith. Study healing scriptures and then meditate on one or more to get a revelation from the Holy Spirit as to what God is saying about healing or any other situation you may be facing.

If you already have this revelation about healing, find someone who might be struggling for their healing and be the centurion in their life. That is what happened to me. While living with a traumatic brain injury, I did not know that God wanted me well or what the Bible said about healing. A friend heard a message about healing and was fully persuaded that I could be healed. As she dug into the Word of God about healing, she learned about the spiritual authority of Jesus and how that was now given to believers. She was determined to help me understand that healing was available for me as well as the centurion’s servant.

We now have this spiritual authority to command sickness and pain to go. Jesus gives us our assignment and authority in Mark 16:18. He tells us to lay hands on the sick and He even tells us that they will recover when we do this. We don’t do this under our own power, but the power of Jesus and the authority God gave to His son who then passes that authority to His disciples. As believers, we are those disciples who today can lay hands on the sick and speak God’s Word to a situation.

Know what God says about healing for yourself as well as being the centurion in someone’s life. What an amazing experience to impact someone’s life by revealing the truth about God’s heart especially as it relates to healing!

~Donna Jones