Call him….
Mark 10:51”So Jesus answered and said to him, "What do you want Me to do for you?" The blind man said to Him, "Rabboni, that I may receive my sight."
Quote of Rev. Charles Spurgeon: “Mark you, when a man hath faith in the soul and earnestness combined with it, he will pray indeed. No prayer ever reaches God's heart which does not come from our hearts.”
It’s a familiar subject of ‘blind Bartimaeus’ alright, but have we received the spiritual insight that God wanted us to get through this lovely episode? Why did Jesus insert this miracle particularly in the Bible, when he had healed multitudes during His life? Many receive but only some perceive His Glory! The life of blind Bartimaeus was certainly special! Now, let’s explore….
We have a beautiful account of Jesus coming to Jericho while He was on His way to Jerusalem and it was there that blind Bartimaeus sat at the way side begging as usual, little did he know that he was going to have the change of his life. Wow! Some of you may feel,’ hey will there be a change from this monotonous, wretched life?” I have good news for you! Get ready for pleasant surprises! Someone has shared Jesus with Bartimaeus and put the fire inside him, he did not hear of the miracles performed by Jesus and say, ’Hey, sounds good but this is not for me, though’ instead he kept meditating upon it. May be he thought, ‘if only I could get to meet this Messiah!’ I want to set you on fire today through this message! Okay? I want to get deeper – I’m not going to scrape the upper portion and be content with it, since the sumptuous portion lies in the middle – the crux of this episode, let’s go on…..
On that particular morning, Jesus was about to pass that way, on His way to Jerusalem to meet the final destiny of His life. This makes this episode more interesting, Bartimaeus was blessed to catch hold of Jesus in flesh during the last days of His earthly ministry. A great multitude thronged Jesus, Bartimaeus heard the commotion and hastily enquired about it, someone told him, “Jesus is passing this way!” That was enough! Bartimaeus raised his voice above the multitude and screamed out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!" Imagine raising your voice above such a large crowd! Well, that was a passionate cry! People warned him and tried to silence him but he raised his voice higher! Nothing can stop a passionate-seeker of God! He kept crying out and crying out, until his voice reached Jesus. Jesus stood still and commanded: call him! Call him! Call him! The blind beggar receives a call from the Messiah! Imagine! This portion is pure gold! I have titled this message as ‘call him’ fascinated by this call from Jesus. Drink every bit of it!
When things look pretty bad we have to look for Him pretty hard! Are you there? Shallow prayers don’t work! Take a break and get into a good fasting prayer group and pour your heart out at His feet. Receive the message preached and amend the wrongdoings in your life; cry out until you reach out to Him. Are you there? Friends, when our funds were running dry, I did not send a desperate circulation to my readers or plead for offering; I wept at His feet and pleaded until my back and my mouth pained. I mean it. Wait until I get to the end of this message!
Someone asked me, ‘how do you plan to raise funds for the ‘Abide Free School’ for the poor children, what are your plans?’ I replied: PRAY HARD. They said, ‘you must be crazy, be practical.’ I replied: PRAY REALLY HARD. All the various projects in our ministry are operated in one single principle: PRAY REALLY, REALLY HARD. We cannot afford to relax. Even when we conduct three days revival camps, where we provide food, accommodation for a very small amount as registration, we in our ministry, never believe to go around flaunting elaborate plans to extract money. God would take care! I have to mention here that in the several years of our ministry, we as a family have never borrowed, never pledged jewels, nor visited any bank for loan nor have we withdrawn cash from credit cards. There were severe struggles, needs, pain and wants, though; yet we dug our heels and refused to give in to pressure. Faith in God strengthens you to rise above circumstances!
Never before Bartimaeus got this attention in his life! People whispered: ‘He is calling you.” It was not a bullying boss calling him to give a peanut hike in his salary, he got a call from the Messiah! You want to know how he responded? Bartimaeus threw away his garment and charged towards Jesus, dashing people on the way I’m sure and got close to Jesus panting, sweating, crying and pleading………..Imagine the scene! This is called hard prayer!
I believe in serving God really hard, I would preach for four hours at a stretch and many, many times I had wept on the stage; I would be drenched from head to foot because of the strain and that is kind of hard preaching I like to do. Many, many people are serving the Lord today who had been birthed from those meetings.
Many do not charge to Jesus immediately, they procrastinate: I will pray tomorrow, I will fast tomorrow, I will give up this very soon, yes, I want to quit doing this sin but not immediately, though, we dilly, dally, dither and get destroyed eventually. Be warned! Jesus was floored by the bold persistence of Bartimaeus, He looked at him lovingly and asked: "What do you want Me to do for you?" Bartimaeus focused in his need, asked: ‘Rabboni, I want to see.’ Observe the reply of Jesus: “Go your way; your faith has made you well." Bartimaeus received kudos for his faith! Immediately he received his sight! He received his miracle immediately because he came to Jesus immediately! That is how it works. Is the story over? Not yet………the best is yet to come. Bartimaeus received a double miracle that day! What was that? His physical as well as his spiritual eyes were opened! His eyes were enlightened to see the Messiah! He knew Jesus was no ordinary prophet but the Messiah. So, so, so…. what did he do? Instead of running back to his home, his dad, his friends or his loved ones to share the good news, Bartimaeus followed Jesus! Awesome finish! A blind beggar becomes the follower of Jesus! He was no more found near the gate of Jericho but he faithfully followed Jesus! Let me repeat the words that I said earlier in the beginning of this message: Many receive but only some perceive His Glory!
I also spoke on this subject this Sunday in the church and shared the message with my ‘Abide School’ kids as well. In fact, I pretended to be blind and had a little game of hide and seek with them in the midst of loud shrieks and laughter; but at the end of the game I spoke about Bartimaeus following Jesus. As usual, just to make sure they got the message, I asked a question to the kids, ‘what did Bartimaeus do after he received his sight? ’ A poor hindu girl who had just joined our school two days back answered in telugu, ‘Bartimaeus followed Jesus.’ Ah, I was happy that they got it! Did you get the message today? I don’t mind being a clown or joker, whatever…as long as you get to know Him in a deeper way. We got to get the vision of what God means! Let us come out of our blanket of shallow Christianity and get a bigger picture of this MIGHTY GOD. Are you there? HE CAN DO GREAT AND MIGHTY THINGS FOR YOU TOO!
I was just expressing my heart, just the way I felt.
