Friday, September 2, 2011
Mark 5:19-20 Go home to your friends, and tell them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you. And he departed and began to proclaim in Decapolis all that Jesus had done for him; and all marveled.
IT WAS EASY FOR HIM!
Well, that's what we'd like to think. We are good at finding excuses.
It's no different when we realize that these words are also an admonition for us. The Lord Jesus would have us also go (not just to friends and family) and as we proceed tell others what great things the Lord has done for us. Yet when we consider these words in context, it's easy to conclude that it was easy for the man to whom these words were first spoken.
He had been possessed by numerous demonic forces. He had lived alone and naked in a graveyard. Then Jesus came and cast out the demons. He was clothed and sane. He wanted to go with Jesus, but the Lord said, "No ... Go home and tell what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He has had compassion on you."
Easy. No problem. After all, the man's entire life had changed for the better. I mean really, he had been naked and friendless, a slave to Satanic forces!
It's easy to say to ourselves, "It's different for us. It's more difficult for us to tell others in our world."
Is it really? The Lord Jesus has Himself changed everything for us. We are no longer outsiders looking in on the promises of God. We are children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. All the promises of God apply to us individually. We have been delivered from Satan's clutches, from sin and from eternal death. We are clothed and sane.
If it was easy for the former demoniac, it should be easy for those to whom the Spirit of God has been given.
May the Spirit of God grant us boldness in place of timidity and fear that we may also tell what great things the Lord has done for us, and how He has had compassion on us.
