Today’s Podcast
Today’s Scriptures
Today’s Bible reading plans include:
Ready – Matthew 8:1-13
Set – Matthew 8-9
Go! – Matthew 8-10
Matthew 8:1-13
1 Large crowds followed Jesus when He came down from the mountain. 2 And as Jesus was going along, a leper approached Him and knelt down before Him.
Leper: Lord, if You wish to, please heal me and make me clean!
Jesus (stretching out His hand): 3 Of course I wish to. Be clean.
Immediately the man was healed.
Jesus: 4 Don’t tell anyone what just happened. Rather, go to the priest, show yourself to him, and give a wave offering as Moses commanded. Your actions will tell the story of what happened here today.
5 Eventually Jesus came to the little town of Capernaum. In Capernaum a military officer came to Him and asked Him for help.
Officer: 6 Lord, I have a servant who is lying at home in agony, paralyzed.
Jesus: 7 I will come to your house, and I will heal him.
Officer: 8 Lord, I don’t deserve to have You in my house. And, in truth, I know You don’t need to be with my servant to heal him. Just say the word, and he will be healed. 9 That, after all, is how authority works. My troops obey me whether I am next to them or not—similarly, this sickness will obey You.
10 Jesus was stunned by the depth of the officer’s faith.
Jesus (to His followers): This is the plain truth: I have not met a single person in Israel with as much faith as this officer. 11 It will not be just the children of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob who celebrate at their heavenly banquet at the end of time. No, people will come from the East and the West—and those who recognize Me, regardless of their lineage, will sit with Me at that feast. 12 But those who have feigned their faith will be cast out into outer darkness where people weep and grind their teeth.
13 Then Jesus turned to the Centurion.
Jesus: You may go home. For it is as you say it is; it is as you believe.
And the officer’s servant was healed, right then.
Today’s Devotional
From today’s background scripture God might say:
Matthew comes back to a story of faith. He tells a lot of stories of faith because that is a center piece of righteousness. Many think righteousness has to do with how you behave, the rules you keep, the church you attend. It doesn’t. None of those things make you a righteous person. Go back and read about Abraham and what made him righteous. He didn’t have any rules. Remember? He came before the Law. Moses didn’t come around for another 400 years!
And how about Job. It wasn’t his behavior that made him righteous before Me. After he lost everything he had, he couldn’t do much more than grovel in the ashes. He couldn’t do any of the things he did with the wealth he had before Satan attacked him, but I still said he was righteous before Me. So it’s not about behavior.
It certainly isn’t about your church. Did you know there are probably child molestors and adulterers and murderers in your denomination and maybe in your congregation. They’re pretty invisible to most people. So it isn’t about the church you attend. That doesn’t matter much to Me. They all have their faults because they all have people in them. They all have hypocrits in them.
Righteousness is all about faith and who you put your faith in. The Centurion got it right. He put his faith in Me. I had not seen faith like his until that point in My earthly ministry. He understood. I didn’t have to go to his house. All I needed to do was say the words and his servant would be healed. He understood authority and had faith that I held authority over the disease that touched his servant. That’s faith. It’s not hard. It’s just believing that I can do what I say I can.
That’s what righteousness is all about. Believing in Me. Believing I am who I say. Believing I can make you into the person I created you to be. Believing I died to pay the penalty you owe for your sins. Believing because of My death on the cross, I have the power and authority to forgive you. And when you exercise that little bit of faith, I can transform your life. I can take away the guilt and the stain of sin in your life and show you a better way to live. I can teach you real love. I can help you to love God and love others in ways you cannot understand until your sins have been washed away by My blood.
Believe in Me. Exercise your faith in Me. Abraham learned I counted him as righteous because of that faith. I will do the same for you and everyone who will do the same. Righteousness is something I give you. Just believe.
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