Hello friends.
It’s now afternoon. It’s nice to have my truck back from my mechanic. I’m planning to load it up and head to an unfinished sawmill job—hoping that the rain will continue to hold—even though the prediction seemed to indicate solid rain. Maybe I can get in a couple hours. We’ll see.
Blessings on your unfolding day. Ray.
This story surrounding Jesus visiting the area of the Gadarenes is a wild one. He is first confronted by two demonized wild guys, who are supernaturally set free from those demons by the divine authority of Jesus—only to then be confronted by the citizenry of that community who want to run Jesus out of town. It’s clear to me that demonic infestation and deception reached far beyond the two wild guys.
What Jesus does next—getting in the boat and leaving—helps to underscore for me a fundamental principle within the realm of the Kingdom of God. In short order, I could state that principle something like this: The Kingdom of God is not a force job—it’s an invitation/opportunity—so if you don’t want Jesus and what He offers, you’ll never be forced to have Jesus and what He offers. The whole matter is reduced to a simple matter of choice. So, if you really want to find God, you can. But the scary fact is that if you really want Jesus and His Holy Spirit to go away and leave you alone, they will.
I continually find myself amazed at the straight-forward simplicity of the Biblical Gospel—offering only two basic packages—with their corresponding bundles of benefits or consequences. Little wonder that John 3:16 has become such a well-known description of those two packages of choice. I think my perception has been enlightened because the choice is more like a “no brainer”—I’ll take ETERNAL LIFE over PERISHING any day—indeed every day.