How To Allow Jesus To Lead You Into Freedom
By Rob Wiltshire
Would you reject something positive? If you were offered something that was going to make your life better; help with anxiety, stress, sickness etc. would you knock it back?
I bet you wouldn’t. I bet you would accept with open arms the invitation to have your life made better.
But… the problem is I’m not good at gambling, and I might find myself losing a bet.
Sometimes in-order to step into freedom — a positive tomorrow, we need to relinquish a hold on something we deem as being a good thing in our lives.
And this is where the struggle begins.
Matthew 8:29-34
28 After Jesus had crossed the lake, he came to shore near the town of Gadara and started down the road. Two men with demons in them came to him from the tombs. They were so fierce that no one could travel that way. 29 Suddenly they shouted, “Jesus, Son of God, what do you want with us? Have you come to punish us before our time?”
30 Not far from there a large herd of pigs was feeding. 31 So the demons begged Jesus, “If you force us out, please send us into those pigs!” 32 Jesus told them to go, and they went out of the men and into the pigs. All at once the pigs rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned.
33 The people taking care of the pigs ran to the town and told everything, especially what had happened to the two men. 34 Everyone in town came out to meet Jesus. When they saw him, they begged him to leave their part of the country.
This story has always made me scratch my head. Jesus turns up, sets people free and the townspeople beg him to leave?
What is the go with that?
Pigs, to the Israelites were seen as unclean—Leviticus 11:4-8. They were something God deemed as unfit to be eaten.
Jesus didn’t just get rid of the demons that were tormenting these men, He got rid of the unclean things in their lives and the lives of the townspeople too.
Why did He do this? Because Jesus is all about transformation of life.
When Jesus turns up He starts by not only setting us free spiritually, but He begins cleaning out of our lives everything that makes us unclean. Or worded another way; everything that causes us to be spiritually unhealthy.
This is the very reason the townspeople begged Him to leave. They wanted freedom/transformation, but they wanted it without change.
There can never be complete freedom/transformation without change. And the problem is, not all change is welcomed or wanted.
Getting rid of the pigs for these townspeople, was removing a source of income from them. While these pigs looked like a good thing to have in their lives, Jesus knew in-order for them to continue to step into freedom, that which was unclean needed to be removed.
The problem for these townspeople was, they didn’t trust Jesus enough to allow the changes to continue; so they asked Him to leave.
I wonder for us. Do we trust Jesus enough when he says; “I don’t think that is beneficial to have in your life?” or “I don’t think that is a positive decision to be making?”
Do we trust Jesus enough to allow Him to remove it? Or are we like these townspeople, figuratively asking Him to leave?