Luke | Did Jesus have a Facebook Page?

At any year’s end it is a positive to shed (pounds) of residue from our lives. Some may actually join a gym or begin a regiment of exercise. Equally beneficial are ridding our imperfections from the “remains” we were born with, attained or attached ourselves to over the years.

God is always seeking those who will allow him to remove the stains of pain and wounds. He yearns to eradicate the ills and deceptions causing us to sin. He pursues the heart so terribly broken to seize the smallest pieces leftover which resonate from past cruel recollections.

We are not born perfect.

Tragic are the people of God who depend on that very instinctive nature to serve him. If God didn’t ordain it, we shouldn’t be doing it. We are not all called to keep the nursery, teach or follow in the footsteps of our ancestors. Anything unplanned by God cannot be fulfilled by unintentional birthrights.

Our natural qualities will never come close to filling the desires of Christ. We were not created to be managed, altered or reformed.

Genesis 1: 26 “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness.”

We are to trade in our scraps of emotional misery for the peace that passes all understanding. (Philippians 4:7”

The merciful “Counselor” (Isaiah 9:6) will take each crumb we have made of ourselves and replace them one by one with the intrinsic nature of Christ resurrected.

If we voluntarily give the fragments of our pathetic lives to the great “Physician” (Luke 4:23) he will form them, one piece at a time into the likeness of the Savior. (Luke 2:11)

In 2014, why not join the “Jesus Gym?”

In seasons of pain or misery there is a counter balance.

Conflict can often be a forerunner to miracles.

This is seen over and over in the Bible.

Jesus walks around and heals people.

Sick for years or decades the lame or blind were healed by his touch or a word spoken.

A word spoken: The power of God’s word created the world. He spoke into existence the planets, galaxies, water, mountains, light, etc.

Jesus also spoke “a word” to demons and they fled. Matthew 8:16

Intriguing line.

Mark 5 is the chapter where Jesus confronts the evil spirit named “Legion” in the possessed man. Legion informed Jesus there were many of them in him. He had a reputation of living among the tombs with a strength to break chains. However when Legion is approached by Jesus he begs him over and over not to throw them “out of the area.”

Luke 8:31 refers to the other area as the “abyss.”

By definition “abyss” is a large deep hole that appears to have no bottom; no hope or no end.

Did Jesus just offer the demons mercy? He didn’t have to agree to Legion’s pleading. But he did. He could have ignored their begging and kicked them into the abyss.

Numerous times in the gospels Jesus rebukes demons or evil spirits to leave people they had possessed.

Luke 5: 33-35 “In the synagogue there was a man possessed by a demon, an impure spirit. He cried out at the top of his voice, “Go away! What do you want with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know who you are—the Holy One of God!”

“Be quiet!” Jesus said sternly. “Come out of him!” Then the demon threw the man down before them all and came out without injuring him.

The Pharisees or those who met or watched Jesus do many miracles, didn’t believe he was the Messiah; the Son of God.

But the demons did. Immediately these revolting and ghastly creatures knew he was the “Holy One of God” or the “Son of God.”

Jesus also made it clear to the demons to either “BE QUIET” or he wouldn’t allow them to speak because he knew they knew he was “The CHRIST!”