What to Do With Life
If we find it worthwhile to send missionaries into alien environments, and if we praise those who make the decision to leave their homeland and go overseas, then we need to confront the question: “What am I doing to tell others about Jesus? What am I doing about my street, my workplace, and my own spheres of influence? Am I boldly proclaiming the freedom and life promised through Christ?”
Our Christianity can grow too comfortable. We may think, “I’m a fairly decent human being. I show up at church every Sunday. I find inspiration in the Bible. I look after my family.” But that is not a description of the transformed life that Christ called us to when He told us to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:18-19). That lifestyle is not what has converted unbelievers across the world throughout history. That complacency sees faith simply as an add-on, a decision made along the way, like someone deciding to join a gym just because they know it’s good for them.
Like the man possessed by a demon in Mark 5, before we can passionately proclaim Christ as Lord and Savior, we first must become acutely aware of how helpless we are: held captive by our sin, roaming in the land of death. Only then can we fully realize the freedom, joy, and life to which Jesus Christ has delivered us. If we have grasped what Christ has done for us, then we will not need to be told that such a merciful deliverance should not be kept to ourselves but shared, whether with the ends of the earth or simply with those immediately around us.
You don’t need to read books or take a class to share Jesus. You can simply tell others how Christ turned you right side up. Jesus had the man in Mark 5 start with his family and friends. His plan for the gospel to spread throughout this region started with one transformed life. So you may not be able to answer all your friends’ questions. You may not know all about the doctrine of the Trinity. But if you are in Christ, you do know that while you were once blind, you now see.
The church is not a pleasure-cruise marina but a lifeboat station. It is our duty, and our privilege, to do as that rescued man did: to go out onto the sea of life to…
Rescue the perishing, care for the dying,
Snatch them in pity from sin and the grave;
Weep o’er the erring one, lift up the fallen,
Tell them of Jesus the mighty to save.[1]
Who is Jesus calling you to go to today?
How is God calling me to think differently?
How is God reordering my heart’s affections — what I love?
What is God calling me to do as I go about my day today?
Jesus Heals a Man with a Demon
26Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes,2 which is opposite Galilee. 27When Jesus3 had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. 28When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” 29For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) 30Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. 31And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. 32Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. 33Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
34When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. 35Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. 36And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed4 man had been healed. 37Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. 38The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, 39“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.
Devotional material is taken from the Truth For Life daily devotionals by Alistair Begg, published by The Good Book Company, thegoodbook.com. Used by Truth For Life with permission. Copyright © 2021, 2022, The Good Book Company.
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