Who Can Do This?
The people went out to see what had happened; and they came to Jesus, and found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting down at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind; and they became frightened. Luke 8:35 NASB
In his right mind– “If you sum up what people tell you about their experiences, you can formulate it this way: They came to themselves, they could accept themselves, they were able to become reconciled to themselves, and thus were reconciled to adverse circumstances and events. This is almost like what used to be expressed by saying: He has made his peace with God, he has sacrificed his own will, he has submitted himself to the will of God.”[1]
“This is not healing through insight, nor through making a new and better relationship with another person, nor even through solving particular problems, but healing by means of an inner change of attitude.”[2]
How was the demoniac healed? Yes, the demons were cast out. Yes, the story is set in the culture of the time. Yes, some miracle occurred. But how? How was it done? The text gives us no answers. Yeshua commanded the spirits to leave and the man was healed. As the text says, he was “in his right mind.” But what was that? Whatever “right mind” means, it had a very unusual effect on the populace. They were afraid. Perhaps being in one’s right mind is so unusual in the human world that it seems bizarre, even frightening. Perhaps the asylum is really all around us and only the sane appear to be deranged. Perhaps being in concert with God and with His purpose for us is so atypical, so abnormal, that it makes others afraid. You might ask yourself, “Who do I know who is truly in his right mind?” The very fact that you have to pause before you can answer should scare you to death. Are we really surrounded by such a dark presence that the appearance of light shocks us? John says that men preferred evil and so they ran from the light, but I’m almost inclined to say that men don’t even know what the light is and when it sporadically appears it is seen as a threat to everything they think they know.
If being in your right mind is the equivalent of being in perfect alignment with God, then it seems to me there are damn few examples of right-minded people in this world. It seems to me that human beings intuitively know they are out of sync with the divine. But it also appears that we spend a great deal of time and effort trying to cure our disease with external medications. We seek the guru, the enlightening experience, the vision, the fulfilled dream, the prestige, the power and the glory in order to squelch that gnawing sore at the core of our being—the one that reminds us that everything isn’t okay. We house ourselves among the tombs, those dead edifices to human superiority and audacity, thinking that since everyone else resides in the neighborhood of the grave, it must be satisfying—somehow. But it isn’t, is it? Along comes a holy man, and in the sweep of a pig herd, reveals our obstinance. “Go away—please. Leave us alone in the dark where we don’t have to look for healing. It’s just too painful to consider.”
Topical Index: right mind, healing, light, Carl Jung, Anthony Storr, Luke 8:35
[1]Carl Jung, Psychology and Religion: Collected Works, XI(London, 1958), pp. 81-82
I’m not sure why we can’t take the text at face value and believe that Yeshua did cast the demons out by commanding them to leave, the man was set free, and therefore came to his senses. Didn’t the disciples do the same? Were we not commanded to heal the sick and cast out demons …even raise the dead?
“The story is set in the culture of the time” – does that mean that today these things can happen in Asia, Africa, and South America where this is a common occurrence (but is often taken to extremes), but not in North America and Europe, where it’s not culturally accepted?
My humble opinion is that some people cannot be helped unless they receive deliverance, wherever they live, in any time period. For sin you need forgiveness, for sickness you need healing, for demonic bondage you need deliverance.
I don’t think Skip was saying that he didn’t believe in demon possession or that it wasn’t necessary but there’s something more. We have come to believe that the way we live, the things that we have been taught ( maybe even and especially by the church) are normal, when the whole time, our normal and God’s normal are two different things. His ways are not our ways or his thoughts our thoughts. ( Isaiah 55:8) Our thinking is what needs to be changed. I think the most deceitful demons could be those that come as angels of light and appear as normal. (2 Corinthians 11:14 and 15 ). We would recognize a demon supposedly because they’re ugly and bizarre, but Satan didn’t come as a demon he came as an angel of light. False teaching is not 100% false otherwise people wouldn’t buy into it, it’s usually mixed with truth which makes it extremely dangerous. We are called to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves. There’s something about deception that’s so deceiving ……
I believe relative sanity (or insanity) is about what we are sharing our sacred inner space with: what we are gassing our tanks up with. What are we using to power through our day? What motivates us? What is drawing us? What delights us? Where are we turning for the love we need? Humans were created with a soul to sell to the highest bidder: to what promises to deliver the power we must have to run this marvelous piece of machinery we got from our Daddy. I am convinced that we have to join with another spiritual force: to agree with some sort of spiritual alignment: before we can even crank the engine. We cannot even choose – we don’t even know what we want – unless and until we choose a motivator first: a reason: a purpose.
Nowadays it seems popular to believe that purpose – motivation – is about what I want: me agreeing with me. This is what I think the essence of humanism is: the belief that chaos is conquered by the individual: that purpose is established by SELF motivation. I almost died believing that! I found, to my sorrow, that when I tried to power myself through my day, I only ended up having to deceive myself about what I was actually having to ‘use’ to motivate myself with. I realized that lots and lots of unholy ambitions were showing up hawking their wares at the back door of my subconscious: I mean, I was doing some really shady deals in my psyche when I wasn’t looking! When I went to clean out my spiritual house, lots and lots of weird crazy-making motivators were sitting there on my shelves. I was really, really crazy!
Repentance, for me, was about trading in all the wrong spiritual motivations, such as all that unloving self stuff (self hatred, self pity, self ambition of all sorts, etc.) as well as bitterness; accusation; all kinds of unclear, occluded thinking that drove my addictions; pride; rejection stuff; and loads and loads of fear. (Go to any insane asylum, and look at what the inmates are using to get through their day. You will find this stuff in spades.) Trade for what? Agreeing to line myself back up with the will of God in my life. When I submit to that will, the Holy Spirit shows up to power that decision. All other motivations: you are no longer necessary to fuel my day. ‘Self motivation’? I have learned that is just a newer, more modern species of insanity.
I don’t know what sort of motivations were driving the demoniacs crazy, but I know what was driving me crazy! I was running straight off my cliff. I was created to be who I am in conjunction with who God is. When I choose what He is choosing, I am powered by Him. When I choose the mind of Christ, I am choosing my own sanity.
I’ve witnessed a blind man receiving his sight.
A lame man walking, and then running.
Addicts instantly delivered (including myself.)
Fractured families and finances made whole.
These occurrences do tend to freak people out.
They’re uncomfortable even having to admit they
happened. Oddly, they can readily watch a magician
make cards disappear, but show them a miracle of
healing? No, that’s not acceptable.
The good news is, God can mightily change even the
most doubting hearts. He did mine!
I agree with you, Me. Pease. I was raised in a mostly blue collar church who had prayer meetings on Wednesday and Friday night that lasted till midnight or two in the morning. They fasted every Wednesday, loves Jesus, fed the poor, raises the dead, cast out demons, saw the sick healed. What does the scripture mean when Jesus said; “Follow me. ..these things you will do in my name.”
We do not see miracles because of works, but because of the power of God in us.
My Dad, was completely healed of lymphoma after being given six months to live: no cho no radiation. He read God’s promises and pressed into the Lord through prayer, memorizing the Word and fasting. He lived another 17 years and the cancer never returned. His testimony was published in Kenneth Copeland magazine.
Now, come let us reason together, do you believe He is Lord over all?
Thank you for sharing that testimony about your father. I’m sort of in the same boat. Believing God for healing. “ by whose stripes, you ARE healed!”.
Very encouraging.
Interesting because never “heard” God say, “I am going to heal you.” He just continued to keep doing what he knew to do; read God’s promises and memorized them, fasted, praised The Lord, rested. He did not modify his diet or chemo or radiation. Worship the Lord! No negativity; that’s the worship music of hell! Also, my Dad said,
“If the Lord choses not to heal me, I will be with the Lord. If I’m here I’ll stay here with my wife! “ Either way, I win.
What my dad did say to the Lord is if you heal me and extend my life I will not sin like Hezekiah did but I will serve you all the days of my life and testify of my miracle and your goodness. My Dad did I want to have a healing ministry for cancer.
Excellent word for today. It really hit me because just the other day I was talking to my nephew ( texting ) back in Minnesota and he was saying something about our family being odd. I told him it wasn’t odd for them. “ normal would be odd!”. Just the same thing that you were saying this morning. Their dysfunction has become normal to them and anyone sharing truth/light becomes strange, like a foreigner to them. All the more reason to let your light shine and be the salt of the earth. God’s truth is a powerful ingredient (Hebrews 4:12) given the time and the freedom it has the power to transform anything! Romans 12: 1,2.
Thanks again for that perspective it really helps as I go out into the world today. Sad truth is, it’s not only the world, but the church who has been affected and is conforming to the standards of the world. I see it happening right in front of my eyes and it’s so “normal “that it’s accepted. I hate to sound like a negative Ned but according to the Scriptures there’s a lot to be said about the last days where people will be deceived and where we will call good evil and evil good. The scary part is so often it is happening in our own lives and we can’t see it. We need each other.
One last thing. I like the sentence out of today’s word where Skip says, “ perhaps being in concert with God and his purposes for us is so atypical, so abnormal, that it makes others afraid”. And then we have to ask ourselves what do we/people do when afraid? When Jesus spoke truth, The Pharisees were always trying to find ways to kill him . They thought they were normal and had the truth. Gods truth always tends to bring some kind of reaction or response.
They say, anyone who loves the Lord more than they is fanatic.
This topic of fear resonates with an experience I had many years ago with God‘s presence. It was so overwhelming, it was as if a bright light was piercing me to my inner core, and it felt, like fear. The light was so intense, it was paralyzing, I had to turn away as if to protect myself from it. Whether that was fear or not I don’t know, but I felt unworthy, unclean to stay in the presence of the light which I knew was God. Maybe I was afraid to be in my own right mind, or maybe, have His mind in mine.
Terrifyingly……..
…I’d rather stay here
With all the madmen
Than perish with the sad men roaming free
And I’d rather play here
With all the madmen
For I’m quite content they’re all as sane as me
– David Bowie “All The Madmen”