Luke 7 and faith

So, our church just finished up a series on faith and for some reason, I can't get Luke 7 out of my mind. See, we just went through Hebrews 11 and looked at all of the heroes of the faith and what faith is in general. As I was reading the other day, I came across this story again. Here it is:

¹ When ^R322 He had completed all His discourse in the hearing of the people, He ^R323 went to Capernaum.

² And a centurion's slave, who ^F156 was highly regarded by him, was sick and about to die.³ When he heard about Jesus, he ^R324 sent some Jewish ^F157 elders asking Him to come and save ^F158 the life of his slave. ⁴ When they came to Jesus, they earnestly implored Him, saying, "He is worthy for You to grant this to him; ⁵ for he loves our nation and it was he who built us our synagogue." ⁶ Now Jesus started on His way with them; and when He was not far from the house, the centurion sent friends, saying to Him, "Lord, ^F159 do not trouble Yourself further, for I am not worthy for You to come under my roof; ⁷ for this reason I did not even consider myself worthy to come to You, but just say ^F160 the word, and my servant ^F161 will be healed. ⁸ "For I also am a man placed under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, `Go!' and he goes, and to another, `Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, `Do this!' and he does it." ⁹ Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled at him, and turned and said to the crowd that was following Him, "I say to you, not ^R325 even in Israel have I found such great faith." ¹⁰ When those who had been sent returned to the house, they found the slave in good health.

So...what did the centurion really do? I think it was a recognition of what Jesus could do and who he is/was. He didn't ask Jesus to "show up." He knew that Jesus' abilities transcended time and space. He didn't even request to speak directly to Christ. He didn't rely upon the presence of Christ or direct contact with him. At the end of the day, this is truly faith. We have a lot of fleeces being thrown out today. People will only trust Christ if he shows himself to them, if he shows up, or if they have a supernatural experience. The reason that this centurion had such great faith is because he was totally aware of where faith came from and in whom he was having faith.

Are you trapped in performance based faith? Are you putting God to the test and then telling him that you will have faith only when he passes the test? If so, then I'll ask you the same thing I ask my kids...who is your authority? Who is your God? Are you your own authority and own god? I don't know about you, but I make a terrible god...and I'm glad I have a transcendent savior who is the author and perfecter of my faith and my life.

Selah.