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DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MARK

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Mark 1:38-39

38 Jesus replied, "Let us go somewhere else — to the nearby villages — so I can preach there also. That is why I have come."  39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.

NIV

Jesus was not content to stay where he was raised; he needed to go somewhere else, to the nearby villages. Jesus had a mission; we see he just stated that he came in order to preach all around. Yes he came to die on the cross for our sins, but had he came and just did that without saying a word people would not know why he did it. Jesus came to proclaim the good news, about the Kingdom of God. Jesus wanted everyone to hear about their opportunity to be restored to a right relationship with the Father. He wanted to spread this news to as many as he personally could, setting the stage for his disciples to continue the same preaching and driving out demons after he was gone. Now that the disciples are also gone, the only ones left to continue preaching the good news and driving out demons would be those of us who have accepted his message and action on the cross. Although his message has been recorded and printed in literally hundreds of languages and is available all over the earth for people to read, it does not excuse us from going elsewhere and preaching and driving our demons. Maybe we don’t have much problem with the preaching part but the driving out demons seems a little spooky. Maybe we don’t even get involved in the preaching part; we pay someone else to do that. Either we hire a pastor for our local church, to stay in one place and preach to us, or we hire a missionary to travel and stay in another place trying to preach there. But let’s say we do go around our nearby places and preach the good news, telling people about Jesus, what about the driving out demons? All around us are people behaving badly. All around us, maybe even in the church are people struggling with demons in their life. If we have forfeited that part of what Jesus did, we might be missing a very important mission. The question is how we drive demons out. Jesus simple told them to shut up and leave. That may not be in our power, but maybe it is since we have the Holy Spirit within. Sure we may not be able to go around to these people behaving badly, and tell them they have demons and we are going to demand they leave, but we can share the good news, and in the process the demons are going to act up, oppose our message, then we can address that issue. It sounds strange but maybe we need to be doing more than we are. If we are going to follow Jesus then maybe we should follow.