Luke 18:35-38
35 As He was approaching Jericho [on His way to Jerusalem], it happened that a blind man was sitting beside the road begging. 36 Now when he heard a crowd going by, he began to ask what this was [about]. 37 They told him, “Jesus of Nazareth is passing by.” 38 So he shouted out, saying, “Jesus, [d]Son of David (Messiah), have mercy on me!”
Bartimaeus must have heard about Jesus. He must have heard about the great things that Jesus was doing, healing the sick and how He was operating in the power of the most high as demonstrated in the miracles. Now remember, this guy was blind. He had not seen even one miracle, he had only heard about what Jesus was doing. This must have built up hope in him. I am sure he must have thought, if Jesus can do this; maybe, just maybe one of this days I may bump into Him and He will heal me.
So, imagine what it must have done to him when he heard the commotion of the crowd and on asking he was told that Jesus, the same one he had heard lots of things about was actually passing by where he was. This was the opportunity of a life time, probably the only one shot he would ever have. But there was a problem, Bartimaeus is blind and there is a huge crowd, how does he pick out Jesus from the crowd? Reminds me of the story of Zachaeus. How does he get His attention? He used the one thing he had, he used his voice and he shouted as much as he could. Even when the crowds tried to shout him down, Bartimaeus did not shut up, in fact he shouted even the more. He was a man full of faith and expectation and he was not going to relent until he got his miracle.
You have to be expectant; you must have faith if you are to receive anything From God. Sometimes we look at our life and we think that God would not waste his time on someone like us and because of such thoughts we have no expectation and we lack faith thus we disqualify ourselves from Gods favor. Many in the crowd must have thought that Jesus would not waste his time stopping to talk to a blind beggar. How wrong they were because not only did He stop, He healed him and changed his life forever.
Many in the crowd came to see what Jesus would do but they did not come in faith and thus they were not expectant that Jesus would do anything for them on a personal level. Bartimaeus was different, In fact he knew exactly what he wanted because when Jesus asked him what he wanted, he was quick to say that he wanted to see and Jesus healed him immediately.
Expect favor over your life not because of what you have done or not done but because of the complete work that Christ did for us!
