All I need to know.

Faith is believing and trusting God no matter what.

No matter the winds that blow against you, no matter the waves that come crashing against your boat, no matter if you’re traveling against the current - faith is standing firm on the Word and character of God.

Faith precedes the miracle, friends.

Shortly after His Sermon on the Mount, Jesus traveled into Capernaum. There, he met a man whose servant was sick and as the text describes, “suffering terribly.” The man exhibited remarkable faith in his request to Jesus. “Only say the word, and my servant will be healed.” You see, the man didn’t request that Jesus come to his home and meet his ill servant. This man understood that Jesus had the power to heal his servant on a word.

Jesus replied, “With no one in Israel have I found such faith. Go; let it be done for you as you have believed.” Jesus commended the man for putting his full trust in Him. Because of the man’s faith, “the servant was healed at that very moment.” (Matthew 8:5-13)

At that very moment. Wow. I’m in awe of this whole encounter. I’m in awe that the man wholeheartedly believed, that Jesus was moved by his faith, and that the healing was instantaneous. Don’t you want that kind of faith?

In John 4, we find another in need of healing - this time, an official’s child. The official asked Jesus to come to his son before he died. Jesus replied, “Go; your son will live.”

Here’s my favorite part, “The man believed the word that Jesus spoke to him and went on his way.”

You see, the man could have pleaded with Jesus to just come with him. The man could have chosen not to trust Jesus’s words. But he did trust. The text continues, “as he was going down, his servants met him and told him that his servant was recovering.” Just as Jesus had said, the boy would be okay. The man asked his servants when the boy began to recover to which they responded, “Yesterday at the seventh hour.” The man immediately knew that that was the exact moment Jesus had told him his son would live. It was at that exact moment that the man chose to believe Jesus.

Both texts use the Greek word “pisteuō” which means to entrust or commit one’s well-being to Christ. To truly trust Him, we must commit our all - our everything - to Him. It’s not a partial surrender, but a full surrender. We cannot give God some things, but hold onto others. I often hear the illustration of sitting in a chair. When we sit down, we don’t give a second thought to whether the chair will hold us. We simply sit. Likewise, we must trust Jesus in that same way. We don’t give a second thought to whether He is in control or whether He is trustworthy. We just know it. We believe it. We live in it.

When Paul says, “He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ” - we we hold onto that with every ounce of faith we’ve got. We believe that God’s at work whether we see it or not. We believe He has gone ahead of us and is preparing the way, even if it doesn’t feel like it. We stand firmly planted on the promise that He works all things for the good of those that love Him. We can put our confidence in Him because He tells us He has a plan and purpose for our lives and that it is good.

At the end of the day, we all have two choices. We can trust in our own way, or we can trust in His. I’ve learned a million times over that I am not in control and I can’t fix anything, let alone know what’s best. I’d much rather give everything over to the One that is able “to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to His power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20)

I don’t know it all. I can’t see it all. I don’t understand it all. But this I know - “This is the confidence that we have toward Him, that if we ask anything according to His will he hears us. And if we know that He hears us in whatever we ask, we know that we have the requests that we have asked of Him.” (1 John 5:14-15)

I don’t know what today’s holds, but I know Who holds today. And that’s all I need to know for now.