In Luke 18:35, Jesus was approaching Jericho. As He approached, a blind man sitting by the side of the road heard the crowd getting more excited and asked, “What is happening?” Someone from the crowd told him that Jesus was coming their way.

Excitedly, the man cried out at once, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” The leaders of the crowd rebuked him for his statement, but that didn’t stop him. He just continued to shout for Jesus.

Hearing him, Jesus had the crowd to bring the man forth. “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus asked. The man replied, “Lord, I want to see.” Upon hearing his statement, Jesus said to him, “Receive your sight; your faith has healed you.”

This man knew where he was and what he needed to do about it. He knew that he was blind and that he wanted, with all of his heart, to see.

Unlike physical blindness, spiritual blindness is not as easy to detect. Some of us have eyes that cannot see. Although we see physical things, we may not see the spiritual.

In his letter to the Ephesian church, Paul prayed specifically for the church there to get their eyes open. “I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints…'(Ephesians 1:17-18.)

The man on the road to Jericho knew that Jesus was the answer to his dilemma. However, his request was not for sight, it was for mercy. He knew that the blindness could not be overcome simply by his desire, for he must have desired it from the time he was old enough to remember. It must be overcome by the mercy of God.

The application here is not all that difficult. If we are blind to spiritual things, the first thing we must do is acknowledge our problem. We do not need to obscure the problem in our pride. Nor should we think that just because we have been in the Lord for a number of years that we can automatically see. Secondly, we need to plead for mercy. Setting our pride aside, we need to call on the mercy of the Lord to help us see. We should know that when Jesus heard a cry for mercy, He never refused anyone.

For us to be able to have the sight God wants us to have, we must first want to see. Our desire, coupled with a cry for mercy will afford us the same as it did this man.

The God Who made the blind beggar to see has the same power to make all blind beggars see. If you and I are willing to see, God will make it so. If we think we know it all, we prove our blindness.

At our best, we are blind and even at our best we still need mercy.

God Bless and GOOOOOOO Dawgs,

Marshall Murphy – Pastor, First Christian Church of Demopolis