And Jesus said unto him, Receive your sight: your faith has saved you. (Luke 18:42 KJ2000)
“Your faith has saved you?” How often we hear preachers who preach upon this verse tell us that we simply were not healed because we did not have enough faith! Has anyone ever told you that? It happened all the time in the charismatic wanderings of my Christian twenties. My pastors passed out books on the subject and I read them. Then at age thirty my third child died shortly after birth, after three days of wrenching labor, strange details, and an emergency c-section. My wife expected Jesus to then, of course, raise little Katie from the dead, but that didn’t happen, at least not then.
What was wrong? Did we not have enough faith? Many would tell us so, but they would be mistaken. Faith itself and the measure each of us has are gifts from God. I can no more create faith than I can create this world or Mars. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Has the Word of God been revealed to you? Good, then you have faith. Has it not? Don’t fret. Ask and you will receive.
So, did this man’s own faith save him? Did his own faith restore his sight? If you think so, then you must believe that he had a lot of faith, more than you and I have ever had, for which of us has prayed for the blind man and seen his eyes opened and his vision healed? No one I know and I have been at this a long, long time.
“Your faith has saved you,” Jesus said. What was this man’s faith? It was Jesus. The fact was not that he had enough faith in Jesus. The fact was that Jesus, the son of David, the LORD, was passing before this blind man and he knew it. Jesus thus asked him what he wanted. He told him, Jesus healed him and said, “Your faith has saved you.” This was to say, “I (AM) has healed you and I (AM) has saved you.”
It is not the “amount” of faith you have which saves you; it is Jesus who saves you. Thus Jesus said, “If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, then you can….” It is not “greater” faith which saves; it is the God-man Jesus who saves; it is not “greater” faith which moves the mountain; it is Jesus who moves the mountain. Your faith IS Jesus!
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