Mmmhhhhhmmmm Bacon!

+AMDG+

“Go home to your family and announce to them

all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.”

-Mark 5:19

I came to the realization recently that to bring people to God is not something you do by beating them up over the head with logic. You do not help people to know God by making them feel bad about life choices or the circumstances they are in. Since no one is superior to another, you do not use your discipleship of Jesus and lord it over them, pun intended. This is not what mercy is about and I do not believe that this is what faith sharing is either. 

I do believe though that in this passage is the heart of evangelism, or in sharing your relationship with God with others. In the parable of the man with many demons, here is a man whom others feared, that no one could subdue, that was self-destructive, was prone to hurting himself and Jesus healed him the same way he would heal anyone else. He did not discriminate against anyone who needed a healing. He took the man's many demons and put them into swine which then in turn ran off a cliff to their sudden demise. 

If that was me and I found all those pigs at the bottom of the cliff I would have thought, 

"Aww Yeah!! Bacon, Baby!

The man then wants to follow Jesus and Jesus tells him to “Go home to your family and announce to them all that the Lord in his pity has done for you.” Now many people would think this is bad because of the whole pity thing but I think that is just an ego trip and an ego trip never got anyone anywhere. Another way I hear this passage is:

"GO HOME and tell everyone 

all the WONDERFUL things that

GOD has DONE FOR YOU!"

My faith is always strengthened more when I hear of someone who is in  a situation that no could help them and the Lord came and changed everything. Listening to how they are a different person and sharing that with others is an incredible thing to witness. And the gears start turning and I start to think, what if I gave the Lord a little more of myself today, what could he do with that...