Hello friends.  I hope you’re enjoying your week.  I for one am thankful for the rain and unseasonably moderate temperatures we’ve been having.  I enjoyed the service last week, even with our musical missteps.  Work on the church is in progress.  We remain hopeful that everything will be done in time.

We missed those who couldn’t be with us.  Pris was tied up getting Kimi back home from the ER and Cathy was not able to come with Ruth as she was still hurting.  Kimi is improving but still feeling weak.  I talked to Ruth yesterday but each day brings new challenges.  Keep them in prayer.

This Sunday we will be in Matthew 8:5-13.  This is a story of “amazing Faith”.  Even Jesus was amazed!  We don’t have record of many things getting this kind of response from Jesus.  That it happened at all is a testament to his humanity.  He was and is God, but while he was here he functioned just like we do and had the capacity for surprise.  So what could surprise Jesus?  Faith!  What made this faith amazing?  It came from a very unlikely source.  The man who displayed this faith may never have met Jesus in person.  We know he didn’t in this situation.  Yet he was so convinced of our Lord’s identity that he made an audacious request.

He was a Roman centurion, a commander of the occupying force ruling over Israel at this time.  He asked Jesus, a Jewish rabbi, if he would heal is servant, who was about to die.  Jesus agreed and began to make his way to the man’s home, but when he was almost there, the centurion sent other messengers to him saying that he was not worthy that Jesus should come under his roof, but that Jesus only needed to say the word and it would be so.

Jesus remarked that nowhere in Israel had he seen such faith.  Israel had all the promises.  It’s people knew the scriptures where those promises would be found.  He walked among them, yet most would not believe in him.  Yet here this foreigner believed so completely and with such understanding as to know that Jesus needed only to speak the word and it would be done.

I don’t know that it’s possible to amaze the risen and glorified Lord, but we know from this story the kind of faith that amazed Him when he was here.  This is the definition of amazing faith: simply to believe that Jesus is who he says that He is, to believe His word, and to live by that faith.

This study continues our examination of the Kingdom of Heaven as explained by Jesus when he made reference to it.  what we learn here is that entrance is gained by faith.  We do not earn our place in it.  We do not inherit it from our parents.  We do not gain inclusion by being present in a church building.  It is not obtained by reciting a few words.  It is by faith in the One who paid the price so that we could enter.

I have left much unsaid.  Come hear the rest on Sunday.  🙂

Love y’all!

Larry