Luke 7:9 –
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to the crowd that was following him, he said, “I tell you, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel!”
The Roman officer sent for Jesus to heal his slave, before Jesus got there the officer did not believe he was worthy and asked Jesus to heal him from afar. Jesus healed the slave and commented to the crowd about this man’s faith. How could a Roman who was not one of God’s chosen have faith more than the Israelis? Faith may be what God is looking for more than following! Here was a man who was not connected to God and he believed without question.
Jesus speaking these words cuts very deep for many of us. I can only say how many times I have prayed my way out of “needs” or “desires”. Instead of having faith God will answer my prayers, many times I pray more on why God will not answer my prayers. My faith seems to run as deep as my most recent encounter much of the time. Funny thing is my faith in God remains solid, but my faith that my prayers will be answered is not. That all stems from selfishness more than anything else because in the middle I will see how one way my prayers are and assume God rejects them.
No faith in God means faith in the Bible and that includes faith in God answering prayers. We cannot have faith in parts of the Bible. Now what the interpretations mean verses reality may be skewed. I believe God is represented as a person, where I believe He is everywhere and therefore more like energy. He took human form in Jesus, but otherwise we try to personalize God too much. Guess if you tried to explain God to someone who has never been exposed keeping it in terms they could understand is important. But at the same time the Roman officer did not question Jesus being able to heal his slave from a great distance … so think about it, how is your faith?