Jesus or Wealth

I know what text you think I'm going to use for this one...the one about the rich young ruler walking away from Jesus who said, "sell all that you have and give it to the poor then follow me." But you're wrong. Hopefully this catches you off-guard like it did me this morning.

Mark chapter 5 tell us the instance of Jesus and His disciples sailing to "the country of the Gerasenes" (?). And immediately they were met by a psycho who was demon possessed. This dude broke metal shackles into pieces! Anyway, the demon begged Jesus to not destroy him (them? the demon's name was Legion) but instead send him (or them) into a heard of swine. So, buddy Jesus, being the nice guy He was, sent them (him?) into the swine and the heard ran off the cliff, plummeting to their death. Here's where it gets interesting...

The people from that country found out what happened, SAW the formerly demon-possessed man, heard that Jesus sent the demon into the heard, and begged Jesus to go away! We've got to understand, that anyone who has a heard of pigs doesn't just have them for fun. Someone has a heard of pigs because they are making money from them. So, when Jesus healed the psycho, but killed another man's heard, the people were more concerned about what would happen to THEIR FORTUNES rather than PEOPLE GETTING HEALED if Jesus stuck around.

Are pigs really more important than people? Is making money really more important than people being redeemed? Please prayerfully consider this thought: are we telling Jesus to go away because we're afraid of the cost of letting Him take up residence in us?



Are we willing to tell Jesus to "stay" and give up everything for Him? That's exactly what He did for us. He gave up His life for us. Let us remember that this Jesus was and is God, the Almighty, the One who owns it all, but gave it all up for us. I believe that this is what He requires of us. Paul knew it and he could honestly say, "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me."