Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Wed. Night Impact


I'm a little behind in my blog. I didn't have a computer all weekend, which was good for me. So, I'm going to catch up on a few things today.
Last Wed., we had a pretty good Wed. I spoke about Bartimeaus. He was a blind man in Mark 10 that Jesus healed. Bartimeaus heard that Jesus was walking down the street, and so he started calling out for him. Everybody was telling him to shut up and leave Jesus alone, but he started calling out for Jesus even louder. Jesus heard him and asked for him. When Bartimeaus got to Jesus, he was asked what he wanted. Bartimeaus asked for sight, and Jesus healed him. Bartimeaus immediately began to see and then began to follow Jesus.

A couple things that we can learn from that story. First of all, being blind was a bad thing. It was seen as a punishment for sin, either your sin or an ancestor's sin. So they were usually an embarrassment to their family, as well as a financial drain, because they couldn't work. So many became beggars. They had to rely on others to take care of them and give them something to eat. So when Jesus asked him what he wanted, he said he wanted sight. OK, who wouldn't ask for sight? My point is that he didn't ask for money or food that would have helped him right then. He didn't ask for a house or for a wife to take care of him. He knew what he needed and he asked for that. He didn't give Jesus something easy to do. He knew sight would change his life, and he had the faith that Jesus could give it to him. Sometimes we don't ask for our real needs. We ask for things that don't matter in the long run. We ask for things that we think would be easy for God to give us. If God wanted to, he could make us all millionaires. He's got the resources. But what do we really need. We can learn a lesson about faith from Bartimeaus.

Second, we can learn gratitude from Bartimeaus. As soon as he was healed, he immediately began following Jesus. He didn't go and try to find his family. He didn't go and try to get some food or some work. He didn't go and find friends. He didn't even go to see something beautiful that had only been described to him. He followed Jesus. Let's say you're swimming, and somebody throws you a floatie thing so that you can suntan in the pool. You might say thanks, and then never think about it again. If you're drowning in the ocean with sharks circling you, and somebody throws you a floatie to pull you out of the water, you're going to be a lot more grateful. You could never say thank you enough times to show your gratitude. This guy was saved from a lot; a life of blindness and extreme poverty. He was super-grateful. We were saved from a life without God, from hell. I know I don't think about it sometimes, but I'm really not as grateful to God as I should be. I always am looking at what I want God to be doing now.

The last thing we can learn from Bartimeaus, is Jesus at all costs. Even though everybody was telling him to shut-up and telling him that Jesus didn't need to be bothered with him, he just kept screaming all the more. Do we have some discouragement in our lives that is keeping us from calling out to Jesus? Are we worried about past sins? Are we worried how others might see us. Are we worried how we see ourselves? All of that shouldn't matter. Jesus doesn't care. He wants us to call out to him. We need to get to Jesus at all costs.

That was Wed. Night.

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