27 Apr April 26th Weekly Devotional
Now the man from whom the demons had departed begged Him that he might be with Him. But Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you.” Luke 8:38-39
They have just crossed over the Sea of Galilee and it started to storm. Jesus was sleeping. The others come down to Him in a frantic, but Jesus stands up and rebukes the storm, calming it. The others are marveled.
They continue on to the country of the Gadarenes, opposite Galilee. They immediately are met by a man, who is naked, lives in a cave, and to top it off has been possessed by demons for a long time.
The demons inside the man immediately recognize Jesus, and they know He is the Son of God.
These demons are so powerful, that when possessing the man, he can break out of chains and shackles. He is a biblical incredible hulk.
Jesus, who is completely full of peace, love, mercy, forgiveness, compassion, and grace, the demons are completely scared to death of.
Jesus demands the name of the demon, who responds, “Legion,” because it is not one demon, but many and they beg Him not to send them out into the abyss, but pleaded for Him to allow them to enter into a herd of swine nearby.
Jesus permits it and they immediately obey, but the herd of swine run down the hill and straight into the lake and drown.
The herdsmen of the swine run into the city and tell everyone they can and everyone comes back out and there, sitting with Jesus, is the man once possessed by a legion of demons, sitting in his right mind and thankfully has his clothes back on.
The multitude is so afraid, they ask Jesus to depart, and He obliges them by getting into His boat to return back across to Galilee.
But before He departs, the healed man is now the one begging. He is begging for Jesus to take him with Him.
One might think that Jesus would gladly take him in to go with them. However, Jesus turns him away, and responds this way, in verse 39, He says to the man, “Return to your own house, and tell what great things God has done for you.”
Then this account is concluded by telling what happened with the man, for the end of verse 39 says, ….And he went his way and proclaimed throughout the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.
When Jesus healed the man of the many demons that possessed him, the people of the city were terrified and sent Jesus away, but now this man, who all the people know, have known for a long time, who was as good as condemned, is now walking and proclaiming Jesus Christ to “the whole city what great things Jesus had done for him.”
Then, eventually, the multitudes, people, sinners, you and me, sent Jesus away again, by putting Him on the cross to die a cruel unmerciful death, the worst of it’s kind.
But then God raised Him from the grave, and before Jesus ascended to Heaven to sit at the right hand of the throne of His Father, He told us this…..Luke’s account:
Lk 24:46, “Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. Verse 48 And you are witnesses of these things.
He is telling us to make disciples of all the nations, and to go back and tell everyone in “the city” what great things Jesus has done for us, that we were witness to, so that they too may believe.
So during this busy week, let’s start, or continue, doing just that, telling the world what great things Jesus has done for us.
