Faith: the door of opportunity?

I've been reading the gospels recently looking for God's perspective on authority and in the process have come across some really amazing, and in some cases quite random, things. I've done Matthew and Mark and I'm halfway through Luke but one thing which is a consistant theme is the relation between faith and authority in Jesus' ministry.

I'm pretty used to the idea that faith is integral to receiving healing, deliverance or miracles but this looks rather different; it seems that in his ministry Jesus understood himself and was understood by others to be exercising authority. So when we pray for healing are we just asking God to do something for us or rather speaking with authority and commanding the sickness which is in opposition to the kingdom of God to fall in line?

Jesus appears to do the latter and this adds a different twist to our understanding of faith. In this scenario faith stops being something that we do which inclines God to act of our behalf - a persuader; instead faith is a declaration of allegience to the kingship of Jesus, to the way things are in heaven rather than the way things are on earth. This declaration then unleashes his authority in our lives and necessarily effects transformation in the shape of healing, deliverance, miracles. In a nutshell, salvation!