Latest / The Daily Word / September 25 – Afraid to Be Free.
Transcript
- Cory: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, good wee hours of the night. Whenever you're joining us, welcome to the Daily Word Podcast for Litual Christian Fellowship. My name is Corey Barnes and it's my privileged pastor, Archtopicampus, and I'm excited to be sitting down with you for another Daily Word episode, where we are going to be doing a devotion from the New Testament portion of our life journal Bible reading plan. Today is September the 25th. Happy Friday, y'all. And on the docket today is Luke chapter 8. And this chapter is just chock full of great stories. It's got all kinds of miraculous encounters and incredible things Jesus taught and did during his earthly ministry. But what stood out to me today comes from one of the I don't know if you can rank these the stories in this chapter by what most captivated, but this this one of this is one of the most captivating stories in this chapter. It's where Jesus delivers the man possessed by a legion of demons in the region of the Garrosenes. Now there's just something beautiful about this story, and this isn't even the whole point of this devotional, but there's something beautiful I don't want us to miss. And that it's that nothing could keep this man from Jesus. Think about it. This man was bound by demonic power. He had lived naked among the tombs out of his gourd. People had tried to restrain him with chains and shackles, and even those couldn't hold him. Yet all that demonic power that was arrayed against him and had bound him. All of it could not keep this man from coming to Jesus when he chose to. And when he came to Jesus, Jesus set him free. Let me tell you, there is no power of darkness greater than the name and power of Jesus Christ. But that has not actually all that stood out to me. Today, what actually stood out to me is something that comes a little bit later in the chapter, and is how everybody else responded to this man's freedom. See, after Jesus had cast the demons out, the people from the surrounding area came to see what had happened. and here is this man who had terrorized their community, who they had tried time and again to bind with chains to keep him under control. And yet here he is now sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. I mean, presumably some of these people might be his friends and his family from before he went cuckoo. You would think they would want to celebrate, but instead Luke 837 says then all the people of the region of the Garacines asked Jesus to leave them because they were overcome with fear. So he got in the boat and left. Think about that. They had lived with this demonized man for years. They had been terrorized by him. They knew what he was capable of. He cut himself. He was wild. Yet somehow, after Jesus set him free, these people became so afraid that they asked Jesus to leave. And I think there's just something deeply human in that response. There's there's an old saying, better the devil you know than the devil you don't. Now obviously Jesus isn't a devil of any kind here, but what I'm trying to say is that we have this innate part of our nature that we would rather Deal with something that is painful, something that is evil, something that is harmful. We would rather deal with it if we know it and we know what to expect from it than to want to deal with something else that may not be as bad, but that we don't know about, something that we just don't understand all of its implications. See, these people knew how to live with the demonized man. They they knew what tombs he hung out with, and they knew not to go near them tombs. They know when they were coming home after a hard day's work. They knew where not to walk. They knew where not to go to run into this man. They knew how to restrain him. They they knew what he looked like and to avoid him. They knew what their life was like this way. But now Jesus had completely changed. the situation. What would life look like now that this man was free? And what Did the presence of someone powerful enough to set all these events into motion, what did that mean for them? See, that freedom that Jesus brought to this man introduced these people into the unknown, and the unknown frightened them. And I and I kind of wonder how often we do the same thing in our own lives. See, there can be areas of our life where we have lived perhaps for a long time in pain and Bondage, dysfunction, fear, insecurity, bitterness, or brokenness. And we've lived with it so long that it's become familiar to us. We know it. We know what to expect from it. We may hate it. We may genuinely want to be free from it, but we know how to live with it. We know how to cope. And sometimes. The unknown of freedom can actually be frightening. I remember relatively recently having a conversation with someone who had spent years in professional counseling. They had worked really, really hard, and Jesus had done tremendous work to heal them. Now, eventually, their therapist pointed something out to them. Every major goal that this person had established with their therapist when they began counseling had been accomplished. They weren't all the way there, but they had largely experienced the healing that they had been pursuing. And strangely enough, that that realization was actually what we would think would be a cause for celebration, was actually pretty difficult for this person. See, what they knew what it meant to be hurt. They also knew what it meant to be in the process of healing. They had learned how to live. as someone working towards wholeness, but now they had a whole different question they had to answer. What does it look like to live as someone who has been healed? Who am I when this pain and this journey of healing no longer defines me? And I think sometimes without consciously realizing it, we can become so accustomed to our wounds that freedom itself feels Unfamiliar. So here's what I want us to bring before the Lord today in our application portion of this devotion. Is there any area of my life, Lord, where I'm not free? Maybe I don't recognize that I'm not free in some areas, but but generally speaking, we we do know those things. Is there any area of my life where I'm not free, but I'm not acting. Effectively allowing Jesus to lead me toward freedom. Maybe it's an old wound that I've been carrying. Maybe it's fear that that I nurse in my heart. Maybe it's bitterness or unforgiveness. It's an unhealthy pattern that I've lived with for so long. I just can't like imagine life without it. Is there any area of my life like that? And if there is. Let's ask another question. Why am I not pursuing freedom? Is it because I'm not convinced that healing is is possible? Remember, this demon possessed man. It was possible for him. His situation was I mean, I I mean I don't want to downplay any of our situations, but it but but like based on that story, it was probably worse probably worse than yours and mine. But this man had received healing. Nothing was powerful enough to keep Jesus from setting him free. And whatever has bound you is not more powerful than Jesus either. You don't have to know exactly what life on the other side of healing looks like before you start walking toward it. You don't have to have every question answered. Because you can trust the one who is leading you there. So don't choose familiar pain just because it's familiar. Let Jesus lead you into freedom. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, I just thank you. I thank you that you are a good God and you are all powerful. And there is nothing that can hold us back when we come to you. So Lord, I thank you for setting us free in any area of challenge, any area of pain. Thank you, Lord, for giving us what we need to overcome the fear of the unknown of what healing looks like, Lord. I pray that that would not hold us back from experiencing all the divine life that you came to earth to provide for us. We love you, Jesus. We really do. Amen.