Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Exodus 5, Luke 8, Job 22, and I Corinthians 9

Luke 8: Jesus incredible mercy is highlighted for us in this chapter by his dealing with the demon-possessed man. A legion of demons lives inside that poor, tortured soul and Jesus shows compassion on them. Compassion on demons?!? Demons?! You gotta be kidding me. It's true...the demons beg Jesus to have mercy on them...to not send them directly to the abyss. Which tells us a couple things: first of all, the abyss is no place you wanna be. All the people that think hell is gonna be a party where all the cool people hang out and have wicked fun...think again...even the demons don't want to go back there...it is HELL! Secondly, does this tell us something about how hell operates? Do the demons need to cause some massive death and destruction before they can return to their master? If Jesus just sent them back defeated, would they have been tortured more than usual? Because they seem to be okay with going back to the abyss via a herd of pigs they drove to suicide...interesting stuff to think on. Regardless, Jesus hears their cries for mercy and sends them into the herd of pigs instead of sending them directly to the abyss. Have you ever thought about the example that Jesus is setting there for us? He even treats demons compassionately! You and I...we have no excuse for being unmerciful. Powerful lesson.

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