Men on a rampage, and Animals that smell.

Matthew 8:28-34 - Have a little read first.

So, here we have Jesus, a couple of demon-possessed men on a rampage, and a herd of pigs. Coming across a couple of demon-possessed men is hardly an everyday occurance of the majority of us today, lets be honest. But for Jesus, he knew exactly what to do. The demons within the men also had some idea of the power of Jesus, and were understandably scared of him. Jesus cast the demons out of the men and into the herd of pigs, before the pigs then ran off a cliff and died.

It is verse 34 that I want to focus on in this blog entry. After seeing the power of God for themselves as Jesus performed this miracle, the town gathered together and 'pleaded', 'begged', 'implored', 'besought' (depending on translation) Jesus to leave. There may have been a couple of reasons for them wanting him to leave. One reason could have been because of the financial loss Jesus caused the town. As the livestock ran off the cliff to their death, it had clear financial effects on the owner of the herd. However I feel that it was a different reason that they wanted him to leave, which is a similar mindset to what we have now in today's society, whether followers of Christ or not.

Fear of the supernatural. Why is it that now, we are scared of the supernatural? For those who do not believe in a 'higher power', the majority feel that a scientific, logical response to unexplained circumstances needs to be found. Even for many believers, the supernatural is often dismissed as religious fanaticism or false practise that scares everybody, so should be ignored and rejected. In the story above ,the townsfolk were scared of this situation, did not know what to do and their reaction was to get Jesus to leave. Many churches have done the same, leaving their communities void of any Godly supernatural space.

We are spiritual beings. God is a supernatural God. I am not saying that we need to be stupid, weird or unbiblically abnormal with our faith, but we need to embrace the fact that God wants to work in our worlds supernaturally. He heals supernaturally, restores supernaturally, provides supernaturally and works supernaturally. Rather than neglecting God's supernatural power, lets biblically embrace it, expect it, and be radically supernatural.