Box

When reading through the Gospels, we get the powerful accounts of Jesus' healing and teaching as he travels around with his disciples.

I had read this story before, but something caught my eye the second time around.

In Mark chapter 5 Jesus encounters a demon possessed man who has a bad reputation from around that region.

"This man lived in the tombs, and no one could bind him anymore, not even with a chain. For he had often been chained hand and foot, but he tore the chains apart and broke the irons on his feet. No one was strong enough to subdue him. Night and day among the tombs and in the hills he would cry out and cut himself with stones." Mark 5:1-5

… Now maybe its just me, but that doesn't sound like a person you would run into in the back alley (or I guess, in this case, the dark hillside)

But the next verse is what got me:

"When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and fell on his knees in front of him" 

Mind blown? 

No?

Let me explain.

We have a demon possessed man who NOBODY has been able to contain because of his power. No man or man made item has done the trick of controlling this man.

Yet "when he saw Jesus from a distance" he completely surrenders and the demons beg Jesus to be cast into the pigs. The NIV version even says in verse 13 "He gave them permission…". 

Most people who talk about this story really just hit on the fact that Jesus had the power to cast demons out of the mans body but I argue it is way more.

It took the sense of sight, from a distance, for the man to fall to his knees before Jesus.

It's nothing new to most of us to hear that Jesus had the power and authority to cast the demons out of the possessed tomb-junkie but most of us aren't rejoicing in this fact fully because in our everyday lives we aren't trusting the demon-commanding power of God, we are scared and halfway trusting some sort of flaky boxed up God.

"Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever" Hebrews 13:8

Some of us go to this verse for reassurance that Gods love will never fail because his love is unconditional because he never changes. And this beautiful promise is definitely true, but lets remember this in the scope of Jesus' power. The same God who gave his son authority and power to drive out a legion of demons from this man in Mark, is the same God who is with his children always and is powerful enough to control every situation in your life and is good enough to work them out for your good.

Realize his power.

Jesus is not a box-worthy God.

Story Time

I recently sat down with one of my best friends, David Brandon, at one of our local coffee shops to catch up and talk before we both leave for college. We started talking about church and what God had shown us this year through all of our crazy experiences.
Our conversation almost immediately became centered on our failures…

Doesn't really make sense huh?

A conversation about healing and growth and gaining knowledge and it is being centered on failure?

Then later as I sat down to do my devotional I was lead to 2 Corinthians 12:9

"But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient to you, for my power is made perfect in your weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weakness, so that Christ's power may rest on me."

Now if you have hung around church, cracked open a devotional or have been to your local christian bookstore, you have probably heard this verse before.

But are you using this verse in its entirety?

First of all, let's just get this out of the way.

Whoever said "God won't give you more than you can handle", could not be further from the truth.

This saying is the biggest LIE.

God gives us more than we can handle so that we can fully recognize his power, his healing, and his goodness through adversity.
 Hearing this myth literally makes me sick.

If we could handle it all, Christ had no business dying on the cross and it was all for loss.

So look at it this way:

Whatever you are going through, whatever you have gone through and whatever you WILL go through, is all a chance for you to learn, hold onto Christ and let him reveal himself to you.

When we keep going back to our same sin its like God is there saying "I'm better than this sin! Only I can give you real joy and satisfaction! Come to me! I WANT YOU."

And when you finally realize that God is greater than any of your desires, and that he fills the hole in you that you have been trying to fit other things into; THEN you can look back on your struggle and say:

"This is my story"

It's when you finally realize God's perfection in your weakness and how he has revealed himself to you in the midst of your sin and has come, met you where you were, and called you his own that you realize the importance of your story.

This verse isn't just for you to treat the symptoms of your sin and make you feel better; It's to change our whole perspective on how we view the sovereign work of Christ in our lives.

     "and they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony..." Revelation 12:11

Realizing God's redemption of us through our testimony gives us power.


Are you just being contempt with Christ's death for our sin on the cross or are you boasting in it?

What struggles have you been brought through? 

How can you use them to help another believer stumbling in that same sin?

Don't waste your struggle. Run to God. Let him show you that he is better and more powerful. Learn.

What's YOUR story?

By Name

The sky and the earth and the air and the galaxy,

In all of their beauty and complexity,

Were created by the One true master. He...

 detailed everything with such skill 

but most of it goes unnoticed because of our lack of just being still.

It's like we're running through the greatest art gallery that ever will be;

Introverted and focused on just you and me.

 

So wake up and widen your gaze!

Stop going through life unengaged and in a daze!

The beauty of this all though is that while he created the entire universe and everything it contains...

He created us, his children, and he knows us by name.