Welcome everyone to this week’s Sunday School Lesson Preview. This week’s lesson found in Luke 7:1-10 is entitled “Faith Can Heal”. As Christians, we should be grateful for and enlist the services of medical professionals and their ability to use their knowledge and skills to treat human injuries, aliments and diseases.
We recognize their services as a gift from God who gives them the tools and intelligence to discover ways to diagnose and repair the human body from many of the unwanted and unwelcomed harms that it suffers and encounters. But that’s just it. They can treat many, but not all harms, and some of those treatments are unsuccessful.
This is why Christians always leave a place for God to step in even when there are medical professionals available and treating us. Christians believe that God is able to heal any sickness and cure any disease. Having faith that God can and faith that God will requires us to come to terms with knowing what God can do and our expectations for what He will do.
In the lesson today, a non-Jewish centurion sought healing for a beloved servant or slave. This centurion was on good terms with the elders of the Jews and besought them to ask Jesus for help for his servant. After hearing their request, Jesus was on His way to see this centurion and his servant when word came for Jesus not to go any further.
The centurion sent word to Jesus that he didn’t feel worthy of him coming to his house and that it was unnecessary for Him to enter to do what he wanted him to do. He believed that by Jesus speaking the word, his servant would be healed. Jesus was so impressed with the centurion’s faith that he said it was unlike any He had encountered in Israel.
The centurion not only believed Jesus could heal his servant, but believed that He would if He so chose to by just saying the word. Like the centurion, we don’t have to have God to physically do anything. His word or will to do something is enough to have it done. Having faith to heal should never be about if God can, but whether if He will.
There are instances in scripture where fasting and prayer is called upon and can and has influenced God’s will. Beyond that, there is not much we can, should or need to do when seeking God for healing. The only other consideration in our petition or request for healing is the incentive God may have for granting our request.
What benefit, if any, was there for God in healing the centurion’s servant? As for as we know, he didn’t fast or pray though he may have. What benefit, if any, will there be for God if he heals us or those we are petitioning for? In other words, how did healing the centurion’s servant or healing those we ask God to heal help fulfill God’s eternal will.
Did the centurion’s servant healing only benefit them or did it benefit someone else? Will our healing request only benefit us or will anyone else be blessed or helped? There’s nothing tricky, magical or mysterious about having faith to heal. It’s a matter of believing God can and God deciding He will.
Well, I hope you will attend SS this coming Sunday and share your thoughts with your class. If you have any comments or questions, be sure to place them in the comment section of this preview. So, until next time remember to fear God and keep His commandments.
Pastor Jordan
