Casting Out Demons

Casting Out Demons

If you have ever dealt with addiction of any kind then you already know. If you have family or really close friends that have dealt with addiction then you have an idea of a mild form of “demon possessed” and, odds are, have seen what this looks like.

People used to tell me that I would transform and close to the end of my previous life one friend actually said that I was like Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and he never knew who was going to show up. The only good news about my addictive state was that I was never violent. For the most part I thought I was happy, when in reality I was masking a deep seeded sadness that is with me to this day. Most days I can easily leave at the feet of Jesus and function “as if”. Some days I forget or get triggered by an event, a piece of music or some other form of stimulus and the “demons” are unleashed.

There is an answer and I was shown the door to the “escape route” and how to deal with these demons that plagued my life. Were there 2,000 as Mark describes? Maybe. At times it certainly felt like 2,000 would be a conservative number. We have the Power of the Holy Spirit within us, we have the Light of Jesus Christ shining through us and we have the Love and protection of our Heavenly Father watching over us. If we “act as-if” our lives are transformed and we are not merely acting, we are being.

Mark 5 NKJV / KJV

1 Then they came to the other side of the sea, to the country of the Gadarenes.
2 And when He had come out of the boat, immediately there met Him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit,
3 who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no one could bind him, not even with chains,
4 because he had often been bound with shackles and chains. And the chains had been pulled apart by him, and the shackles broken in pieces; neither could anyone tame him.
5 And always, night and day, he was in the mountains and in the tombs, crying out and cutting himself with stones.
6 When he saw Jesus from afar, he ran and worshiped Him.
7 And he cried out with a loud voice and said, “What have I to do with You, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I implore You by God that You do not torment me.”
8 For He said to him “Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit.”
9 Then He asked him, “What is thy name?” And he answered, saying, “My name is Legion; for we are many.”
10 Also he begged Him earnestly that He would not send them out of the country.
11 Now a large herd of swine was feeding there near the mountains.
12 So all the demons begged Him, saying, “Send us to the swine, that we may enter them.”
13 And at once Jesus gave them permission. Then the unclean spirits went out and entered the swine (there were about two thousand); and the herd ran violently down the steep place into the sea, and drowned in the sea.