Where do you go when Jesus says “Go”?

For the first time since he was a small child, the cacophony in his head was gone. A hundred accusing voices, a flock of vultures scavenging every half-formed thought from his mind, gone. His deliverer’s followers had wrapped him in a warm garment, covering his nakedness with dignity. His new docile, submitted posture of a disciple was  a mighty display of God’s power, stunning those who came out to the graveyard at the edge of town to see for themselves what Jesus had done with a single command.

Why wouldn’t this now-free man want to follow Jesus everywhere he went? He would have been the most loyal disciple. I can’t imagine he had a single streak of Judas betrayal in him. Betrayal had exited his soul along with the rest of the noisemakers who’d entered the crazed herd of pigs that day.

The man from whom the demons had gone out begged to go with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, “Return home and tell how much God has done for you.” So the man went away and told all over town how much Jesus had done for him. – Luke 8:38-39

When I read the story of this account yesterday, I was struck by what Jesus asked this grateful man to do.

Return home. Tell how much God has done for you.

No one else on the planet would have been as amazed by this man’s transformation as the people once who’d sent him away because he was so out of control. How many times have we heard Jesus’ call to go into all the world to make disciples and discounted home from that command?

Yes, Jesus told us to go to the nations. And sometimes – maybe oftener than we think – he tells us to go home and tell how much God has done for each one of us.

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Yesterday, Family Life Radio network aired an interview I did with broadcaster Martha Manikas-Foster about my Christianity Today/her.meneutics blog post about my dad’s porn habit. Click here to listen to the 11-minute interview.

It occurred to me when listening to it that this was one small way I can tell what God has done for me.

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