You can break chains but you're not free. You're a slave. A miserable, demon infested, self-mutilating slave of Satan. How long has it been since you tasted joy? How long has it been since you laughed? You spend your days wandering among the dead, screaming out in agony, and slashing your body with stones. Occasionally a glimmer of sanity returns and you realize what a monster you've become, but the sanity is soon swallowed up by the demons. It's in these brief moments of sanity that you realize how desperate you are. Oh what you would give to be free! To see your family again, to laugh with friends again, to live a normal life. But you're a hopeless slave, unable to conquer the vast legion of blackness within you.

But on one particular day something extraordinary happens: someone comes looking for you. No one has ever come looking for you. You are a terror to those around you, a horror to be avoided at all costs. People don't look for you, they run from you. But this man is different. He has come across the sea, looking for you.

As he steps from the boat, your insides begin to rip apart. The legion of demons within you is making every effort to flee, yet you feel yourself irresistibly drawn to the stranger from across the sea. A power greater than Satan himself is drawing you down to the shoreline.

You stumble down to the shoreline and fall at the feet of the stranger. The stranger speaks to you, or rather to the demons within you, saying, "Come out of the man, you unclean spirit!" The words carry absolute, world-making, spirit-commanding authority. The demons within you are in an absolute panic. They have no choice but to obey this man.

Like whimpering children, the demons plead with this man, this Jesus, not to torment them, but to send them into a herd of pigs. Jesus agrees, and in a mighty rush you feel the blackness leave your body. Your mind clears, your eyes focus, and you find yourself kneeling at the feet of Jesus, the mighty demon conqueror. Your tormentors have been vanquished and you have been set free. You're no longer a slave to the powers of darkness. When you were helpless, Jesus came looking for you. The mercy of Jesus overwhelms you.

You're willing to do anything for this man who delivered you from darkness, and you beg Jesus to let you follow him. But Jesus has other plans for you. He says, "Go home to your friends and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you." And so for the rest of your days you passionately tell the story of Jesus the savior, your savior. You tell them of the mercy that Jesus showed to you, a demon infested tomb wanderer. [Taken from Mark 5:1-20]

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Do you remember when Jesus came looking for you? Do you remember the mercy that He showed you when you were a helpless slave of Satan? Let us thank our Savior today for the mercy that we've received.