He asked for healing. Jesus did what he asked.

We forget the many accounts of Jesus and his actions in Matthew. (Or maybe you haven’t read them yet.) Go to Matthew 8.

Two in a row – first there’s a guy with leprosy. He comes up and says to Jesus that if he’s willing, he can heal him and make him clean. They guy does not say, “Lord, if you want to, some time a few years down the road, you could slowly heal me.” He just comes right out and expects Jesus to heal him right then and there.

Then there’s the Roman centurion (a leader of 100 men). He knew about authority. He was used to asking for something to be done and it happened right away. He was smart enough to know that Jesus had the power to heal that servant without having to travel in the centurion’s chariot all the way to his home to do the healing. (Matthew didn’t write about that kind of miracle taking place before this one, so maybe the centurion had never heard of that happening.)

Jesus healed the servant right then. No delay. No travel needed.

We love to put conditions on what Jesus can do… “I have to be right first,” or “maybe it’s not the right time,” or “I don’t have enough faith.”

No. Jesus just healed when the people asked. And sometimes when they didn’t. Read on – later in the same chapter, Jesus commanded some demons to leave two men. Those guys definitely weren’t in a place of having all the boxes checked before they asked for healing. Jesus just did it.

So let’s strip away all our conditions and just ask Jesus to work. Today. Now.

Paul Merrill writes here every first Friday.