Mark 10:51–52: “And 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.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go your way; your faith has made you well.’ And immediately he received his sight and followed Jesus on the road.”

February 5th, 2022 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Don’t you love the question Jesus asked Bartimaeus, the blind man who was calling out to Him: “What do you want Me to do for you?” In fact, it is a question Jesus still asks men and women today. The Book of James says, “You do not have because you do not ask” (Jam. 4:2). Did this blind man know what he wanted? You bet he did: “Rabboni, that I may receive my sight.” He asked for a miracle, believing that Jesus was both willing and able. Jesus’ answer was simple yet deeply insightful: “your faith (kas) has made you well (sozo).” This can be literally translated: “your faith has saved you.”

Bartimaeus had both his physical and spiritual eyes opened at the same time. This outward physical healing reflected the inner healing of salvation. Bartimaeus then “followed Jesus on the road.” He left his old life behind, never to return. We can say with great confidence that Jesus heals people. Sometimes He does it through doctors, sometimes through friends, and sometimes through people we don’t even know.

There is an old, true story that took place in rural America, as thousands of GIs were returning home from WWII. When one young soldier arrived home in 1949, he found his mother deathly ill because of kidney problems. She desperately needed a blood transfusion. But she was AB negative, and no one else in the family had that blood type. Blood banks did not exist at that time, so the family had no options. The family gathered to pray and say their goodbyes. The heartbroken young soldier was driving home from the hospital when he saw a fellow soldier hitchhiking. He picked him up but was unable to hide his grief over his mother. The other soldier asked what was wrong, and after he heard the man’s story, he pulled out his dog tags. On his dog tags was his blood type—AB negative. Because of that hitchhiker the mother recovered fully and lived another 47 years. Some would say this was coincidence, but that soldier believed God sent the hitchhiker and often wondered if he was actually an angel.¹ Whatever the case may be, these kinds of coincidences happen quite often in the lives of people of faith. Jesus still heals, just as He healed Bartimaeus 2000 years ago and millions of others since then. Sometimes the healing is spiritual, sometimes it is emotional, sometimes it is physical, and sometimes it is all three.

“LORD, use us today so that someone might be healed through our lives, our words, or our actions.”

¹http://www.kirkmancc.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Live-in-the-Margin-1-Kings-17.pdf, accessed July 29, 2015