From Shauna Humphreys book “100 Favorite Verses to Bring You Closer to Christ”:
And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee. And immediately he received his sight and followed him,
glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God. ~Luke 18:42-43
Hearing the noise of the multitude, a blind man inquired as to the sound’s source and was told that “Jesus of Nazareth passeth by” (Luke 18:37). Upon hearing this the man begged for Jesus’ mercy. Obviously this man knew Jesus, at least by reputation, (Luke 7:21). It is interesting to note that Jesus singled the man out and asked him what he wanted. There is no doubt that the Lord already knew the man’s desire, but He needed to allow the man to show his faith in the Son of God. Four significant events then occurred: the blind man received his sight, he followed Jesus, he glorified God, and those who witnessed the miracle also praised God.
This was not the first time Jesus had affirmed that faith had made a person whole, and it would be far from the last. We thrill at the incident of the woman with the issue of blood who needed only to touch the hem of the Savior’s robes in order to be healed. As with all the assurances of the Savior’s healing hand, whether in the lives of others or in our own, we know that faith precedes the miracle.
And true discipleship followed this miracle. Having received his sight the man could have been satisfied to go his own way, giving no more thought to the Giver than did many of those who were miraculously fed by the loaves and fishes. But he was not satisfied with simply being able to see in the physical sense. Here we see the miracle of recognizing perfect vision in both the physical and spiritual sense when he saw and more importantly recognized the source of that light and aligned his actions accordingly; He immediately followed Jesus.
His course of adjustment was to glorify God, or in other words, he expressed open and public gratitude for the magnificent gift he had received. He did not procrastinate, thinking perhaps to send a thank you note at a later time; after all, with his newfound sight, he had a lot of things to see and do. Again, we note the word immediately. His thanks were not perfunctory and hasty; one does not appropriately glorify God with a quick complementary word or a casual wave of the hand. We definitely sense an appropriate and lasting acknowledgment of God’s goodness, and the man’s outpouring of appreciation was contagious. Everyone privileged to be there on that momentous occasion praised God, no doubt recognizing by the Spirit the source of light in their own lives. The restoration of physical sight was eclipsed by an even greater miracle of healing, which the Savior desires to bestow on all true disciples. It is the miracle of eyes that see what is worth seeing, ears that hear what is worth hearing, and hearts that understand His words and are converted (see Matthew 13:16).
“And you shall see me and know that I am—not with carnal neither natural mind, but with the Spiritual” (Doctrine & Covenants 67:10).
~Shauna Humphreys, “100 Favorite Verses to Bring You Closer to Christ” (American Fork: Covenant Communications, 2012), 69-70
