WPC Pastor's Warm Up, March 8, 2010

Some of us know people who are really perceptive. Often they are our friends. They seem to know how and when to ask a good question that takes us into uncharted territory in our souls. We'd like to answer their question, but at the same time maybe we'd rather not. Because we feel unnerved. Maybe exposed. I suspect Jesus was very much like this. Read Luke 8:26–39 and see how many people become unnerved by his love. A whole country! The key is how to handle feeling unnerved by the love of God. This takes courage. It takes trusting God. What we don't want to do is what those Gerasenes did - they were so unnerved by Jesus they asked him to leave! The most unnerving thing about this whole scene is that Jesus did exactly that! Don't ever ask Jesus to leave. The most heartening thing is how Jesus loves a lost man back into his right mind. Then he gives him a new identity and a new purpose. What a friend we have in Jesus.

Pastor Dick Thompson