I Found A Love - Keith Hall

Last Sunday Lori taught an excellent lesson on faith in desperate situations. One of the examples was that of the Roman centurion whose servant was sick and in need of healing. Lori pointed out that Jesus marveled at this man saying that he had not encountered such faith before, even amongst the Jews. She further stated how wonderful it would be to have the Lord marvel at her (or any of us)to which I say, AMEN !!! I was thinking about the circumstances involved in all three examples of faith which made up our lesson and I thought there was something to learn overall from their totality and an additional lesson present in each individual case. The one thing that struck me most about the centurion's situation was that Jesus may have seen this as a tri-fold example. First,as Lori pointed, out He heard the wonderful report from the Jewish leaders that were sent by the centurion as envoys, how he was a man of excellent report, how he had built for them a place of worship, etc. and all this from a soldier of Rome. Secondly,Jesus also heard as the centurion explained his understanding of how EVERYTHING was under the authority of Jesus and that He had complete control over ALL things including illness and could therefore heal his servant. Lastly, though possibly foremost in Jesus' mind, was the utter selflessness of his request. Unlike the other two examples of faith given to us in the lesson, this man's petition was on the total behalf of another. It was also on the behalf of his SERVANT. Servants were many times treated no better than animals by their masters in those times. They were insignificant,ignored, and many times abused yet this man had compassion on "the least of these" and sought Jesus out to deliver the servant from his illness. I may be wrong but I believe this is what made Jesus marvel. If selfless love were found more often in us it would cause Jesus to marvel at us as well. If truly selfless love were not so rare it might not cause marveling at all as it would be more common rather than the scarce commodity it is. Selfless love takes the Lord Of Glory to a cross to die alone for a world filled with undeserving, unrepentant, and ungrateful sinners in order to ransom them from their well deserved fate and bring them to Himself. His is the only truly selfless love I have ever found.