FBC Daily Devotional – January 20, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, a good Wednesday to you. How are you doing this week? We're at the middle of the week, halfway point.

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Things going well? Getting your work done? How are things at work? How are things going in the family?

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These halfway points in the week give us a good time to reflect and think back. Okay, what do

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I need to adjust? What do I need to fine -tune to move forward through the rest of the week as we look toward the weekend?

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Well, whatever the case, I hope your day is going well, and your week is going well. So today in our reading, we are in Matthew chapter 8, and there are these two individuals that come to Jesus, and notice that they come to Jesus.

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So they take the initiative. There's already a measure of faith as they come to Jesus, and both of these individuals demonstrate an implicit trust in Him.

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Both of them came to Jesus believing that He had the power to heal in some very significant ways.

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The first is this this leper, and there is no more hopeless condition in that first century than leprosy.

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A leper had to pretty much resign himself to a life of isolation and a life of being quarantined because of his affliction.

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Some of you may know what that quarantine feels like these days with the COVID stuff and having to have been quarantined or isolated for a certain number of days, maybe 10 or 14, whatever the case may be.

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Well, imagine if you were a leper that you were going to be quarantined indefinitely, probably for the rest of your life.

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So what a hopeless situation, and yet in his hopelessness he sees that Jesus is the...

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There's hope in Jesus, and so he goes to Jesus, and in his implicit trust, notice how he resigns himself to the will of Jesus in healing him of his leprosy.

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He knows Jesus can do it, but he says to Jesus, if you will, you can make me clean.

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If you will, you can make me clean. And the Lord Jesus, in his compassion and kindness toward this leper, willed and made him clean.

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Well, then here comes a second gentleman, a second man. He's a centurion, and he too has an implicit trust in Jesus, but his situation is a little different.

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He himself is not sick. He's burdened and concerned about his servant. His servant is sick, and he's confident that his servant is going to die unless Jesus intervenes.

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So he comes to Jesus and asks Jesus to heal his servant, and Jesus said,

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I will come to your house and heal him. But then the servant demonstrates that implicit trust by acknowledging that Jesus' authority over his servant's sickness, that Jesus' authority was not limited either by location or by his physical presence.

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Jesus could be miles away from where this servant is, and the centurion says, even though you're miles away,

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I know that you can, and he says, quote, only say the word and my servant will be healed.

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Your word, just saying your word, will span the distance between where we are and where my sick servant is, and he will be healed.

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And Jesus is marveling at this centurion's faith, and he says,

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I haven't seen faith like this anywhere in Israel. This is tremendous, stupendous faith.

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So in both of these cases, Jesus graciously responded to their faith and granted their requests.

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But all this does make me wonder about my faith and encourage you to ponder about your own.

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Do I have the kind of submissive faith of the leper, where I say,

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Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. You can do this. You can accomplish this, if you will.

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And so many times we go to the Lord in prayer with a good notion. We go to God in prayer with a good notion of what we think he needs to do, and we ask him to do it.

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Is there with that a caveat that is expressing our submission to his will?

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It may very well be that the thing I want the Lord to do is not his will.

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It's not going to further his purposes, and therefore my request is out of line.

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So my request needs to express this implicit trust in Jesus, but be submissive about it.

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And in the case of the centurion, do I have the kind of confident faith in Jesus that the centurion has?

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I know, he says, you can do this. I am confident. You don't have to be right here in this room to do this.

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We don't have to be where the sick man is. You can do this. Do I have that kind of implicit trust in the authority and the power of Jesus, the confidence in him that this centurion demonstrates?

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Now, frankly, this passage dovetails quite well with what we read in Proverbs 3 today, doesn't it?

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Verses 5 and 6, Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding.

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In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths. Trust in the Lord with all your heart.

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Do not lean on your own understanding. The leopard did that. He trusted in the Lord. He didn't lean on his own understanding.

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He says, if you will, you can do this. And so did the centurion. He didn't lean on his own understanding.

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His own understanding might lead him to think that Jesus had to be there in the room where the sick servant was, but no, he didn't lean on that understanding.

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He trusted implicitly in the Lord. In all your ways acknowledge him and he'll make your path straight.

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Do I trust the Lord wholeheartedly? Do I acknowledge him in all of my ways?

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These are good questions to ponder. So look back here in the middle of the week. Look back on the last few days of this week.

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What's your trust been like? What's your trust been like? I pray that God will give us the grace to have the faith of a leper, the faith of a centurion.

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And so Father, I pray increase our faith and we ask this in Jesus name and for his sake.

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Amen. All right. Well, we are planning tonight to have in -person midweek service, a

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Bible study and prayer time. If you're comfortable in attending that, you're welcome to come and join us.

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Otherwise, we'll not be live -streaming that because of the nature of that particular service, but join us back here again tomorrow for our daily devotional time.