U-Turns by Tony Evans

Author:Tony Evans
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Religion/Christian Living/Spiritual Growth
Publisher: B&H Publishing Group
Published: 2021-01-12T00:00:00+00:00

Demons don’t always come dressed in red while carrying a pitchfork. Demonic influence is an invisible and spiritual issue that only gets worse when we allow it to fester, rot, and spread. Things in our lives (thoughts, relationships, activities, addictions) that go unaddressed at their spiritual core only promote a greater demonic influence within us. Before you know it, you wind up carrying out their bidding without even realizing they are the root.

The way to rid demons and their influence in your life can only be found in the power of Christ and His truth. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Darkness cannot drive out darkness. Only light can do that.” You cannot overcome demonic influences through self-help strategies or New Year’s resolutions. Only the light of Christ can cause them to flee.

This is exactly what happened in the case of the demoniac. We read further in the passage when the demon-possessed man saw Jesus get out of the boat, he ran toward Him and bowed down. He bowed down in a posture of worship and submission. Demons know Who is in charge. We read:

When he saw Jesus from a distance, he ran and knelt down before him. And he cried out with a loud voice, “What do you have to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you before God, don’t torment me!” (Mark 5:6–7)

When demons take over but Jesus is brought into the equation, there is going to be an internal and external conflict between what you want (freedom) and what the demons want (oppression and control). You can see this conflict show up in the way this man speaks to Jesus. He goes from using a plural pronoun for himself “we” to using a singular pronoun for himself “me.” He went from plural to singular because the man is battling within himself. The demons were speaking and he was speaking. Both were looking for release from the torment.

What is the torment? The spiritual is meeting the spiritual. The spiritual realm of demonic forces is meeting up with the spiritual realm of Truth in Christ. When the problem faces the solution, it creates torment. There now rages conflict inside this man that erupts to the surface. In verse 8 we read that Jesus had been saying to the demons to come out of the man. But the demons didn’t want to come out. They had found a place to terrorize this man and create chaos in his community. They wanted to stay, so they were grasping on to their hold with all they had. Jesus wanted them out. The man wanted them out. They wanted to stay. Torment ensued.

You may not have faced this specific type of torment, but you have no doubt been in a position where you were caught between two desires. You had an inner pull leading you to Christ and another inner pull leading you toward something else. You had the desire to please the Lord in what you did, thought, or said but something else kept pulling you in the other direction.

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