Love & Share!

Today’s Reading:  Mark 5:1-20

I think about this poor man full of these torturing demons, how terrible a life he had been living.  How lonely he must have been.  I wonder what happened in his past---when did these demons invade his body?  Did it start with one?  Did his family or friends try to help him?  Had anyone told him about God?  You know we don’t know what people are living with, we don’t know what is really in the hearts of the hurting.  I believe with everything in me that everyone wants to be loved, but some are not willing to let their guard down long enough to let someone in.   It seems that if you are nice to everyone or if you truly try to love everyone that people think you are up to something.  Isn’t that sad, especially since God created us out of love and loving others is his greatest commandment.  Satan is using everything in his power to convince people that they are unlovable.  He is doing everything in his power to make people see the good in others as something other than good.  We have to remember that God is love and truth and that Satan is the author of lies and confusion.  So I have to ask the question, did anyone try to love this man that was full of these demons? All we know from scripture is that others did try to bind him with chains.  I think about this man when Jesus stepped out of the boat that day, I know the demons recognized Jesus immediately, but what about the man---did he know that Jesus was the answer to all of his hurt?  Whether he knew it or not at that moment doesn’t really matter, what matters is that this man was cleansed and changed from that day on because of this man named Jesus.  Jesus expects us to love in this same way.  It is really easy to love the lovable, to love the ones that agree with your same belief, however, it takes great faith to love those who seem unlovable.  But you know, it is those that don’t expect our love that will be changed the most by it---the love that we have is not really ours anyway, when we decide to follow Christ he fills us with his love and there is no doubt he wants us to share it with everyone.  Just like the man healed of demon possession, we are to be so excited about what God has done for us that we share it with everyone.  My favorite part---‘they were amazed’---if I really told everyone what Jesus has done for me would others be amazed---would others feel the love that I feel?  I would hope so---but my lesson here is that I need to love even more and I need to share more about my great God!