The Children For Christ by Andrew Murray

the strengthening of faith. God’s one purpose with parent and child is
to exercise and increase faith in them. By faith they become capable of
receiving the revelation of God’s glory, and showing it forth again; by
faith God can dwell in them, and work through them. God’s one desire
is that they should more fully believe in His Son; and our one desire
should be to meet the sickness by faith in Jesus.
This is the one great lesson the story of the nobleman teaches us — the
growth and increase of faith in the dealing with Christ. It begins as a
general faith in what he has heard of Christ’s compassion and power;
this brings him into contact with Christ. He believes in Jesus as a healer.
It becomes a distinct faith in the promise he received of healing: `the
man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him.’ He believes in
Jesus as the Healer of his child. And then the faith in Jesus the Healer is
perfected in the faith in Him as Savior and Lord: `himself believed and
his whole house.’ This is God’s one purpose with sickness; let it be ours
too. Let the chastisement discover to us our unbelief, and that fleshly
and worldly spirit, that unholy life, in which unbelief has its root and
its strength. Let us look from the hand that holds the rod to the face of
Him whose is the hand; to see that face in truth makes trust easy and
real.
How the sickness is to be healed? This is the second question our story
suggests. The answer it gives is very simple: By the power of Jesus. In
Matthew Christ’s healing work is spoken of as the natural result of His
atoning work of which Isaiah had spoken (Isa. 53; Matt. 8) as a bearing
of our sickness. He took upon Him our human nature in the flesh, and,
having redeemed it, lifted it into the glory of the eternal life in heaven.
When on earth, He delighted in healing the sick, as something His
loving heart could do for them even when He could not save their souls.
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