Isn’t it amazing that our God of limitless power is also our God of infinite love? Think about it for a minute: if God were all-powerful but imperfect in love, we might live our days in fear of caprice; but for indomitable power, on the other hand, a God of flawless love would be constrained in His ability to express it. Praise God, He is perfect in both! This then is the Gerasene’s story: in great love, Jesus cared for a man abandoned to a tortured existence, and in unmatched authority He dispersed his quaking tormentors of darkness. The man had become free—free from demonic authority, and free to follow Jesus.
As his Deliverer got in the boat to leave, the grateful man “begged to go with him.”1 Who could blame him? Yet Jesus had in mind something even greater for him—the gift of impact, or “making a difference,” we might say. “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you,”2 He replied. So, equipped with the one thing he needed for success, the true story of Jesus’ work in his life, “the man went away and began to tell in the Decapolis how much Jesus had done for him. And all the people were amazed.”3 How many were “rescued … from the dominion of darkness and brought … into the kingdom of the Son”4 because of one man’s testimony, we cannot say. But we do know when Jesus returned to the Decapolis area and was asked to heal a man there, He “took him aside, away from the crowd.”5 In a region where He was once been asked to leave, there now amassed a crowd to see Him—perhaps the fruit of a one-time demoniac, now turned faithful witness.
Not many of us have had to suffer the way this man did, but we have experienced the power and love of Christ in our life, which is to say we have a story to tell. We need not to defend our testimony, because it is true. We don’t have to go about changing people, because we can’t. We need only to witness—to tell what we’ve seen—knowing people will be encouraged and God will be glorified. Could there be a more meaningful life than to make a Kingdom impact for eternity? By God’s grace we can, for we are in Christ, and by now we know this to be true. Jesus. Always. Wins.
“Well done, good and faithful servant!” (Matthew 25:21)
Father, you have graced us with your favor and given us a story. Grace us again with the opportunity and courage to share it. Bear fruit for your Kingdom through us, your people. Amen.
1 Mark 5:18
2 Mark 5:19
3 Mark 5:20
4 Colossians 1:13
5 Mark 7:33
Paul Nordman—Author 