Sent to My People

“And as He was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed was entreating Him that he might accompany Him. And He did not let him, but He said to him, ‘Go home to your people and report to them what great things the Lord has done for you, and how He had mercy on you.’” Mark 5:18-19, NASB.

After I first became a follower of Jesus, I enjoyed spending time with other Christians. They encouraged me, and I felt good being with them. Yet the more time I spent with them the less influence I had with my own people. I was becoming an outsider in my own village.

One day a Christian friend of mine had his motorcycle stolen, and I agreed to go into some of the villages deep within my people’s territory to see if I could recover it. As I was looking around a group of men involved in the rebel military movement seized me. They claimed I was seeking to kill one of their commanders. I told them it wasn’t true, but they did not believe me. They tortured me, and when they showed me all the bones of hostages that they had killed before I thought I was going to be killed for sure.

The odd thing about the situation in which I found myself was that I didn’t get angry at my captors. God showed me that they were doing what they did because they didn’t know Jesus. He also reminded me of the story of the man possessed by Legion in the Gospel of Mark. After being freed from the demon, the man wanted to go with Jesus and His followers, but Jesus told him to go back to his own people and tell them all the things God had done for him.

I knew in the same way that God didn’t want me to leave my people to follow Him. He wanted me to go back to my people. As soon as God gave me that revelation my captors suddenly decided to release me. At that moment I surrendered to be God’s messenger to my own people.

Pray that:

God will continue to use this man to bring the Gospel to his people. He is one of the first believers among his people group of over a million people.

God will give new believers from this people group eyes to see that the persecution they suffer is only because their family and friends don’t know Jesus yet.

New believers will stay within their villages and culture so that the Gospel will spread as they are salt and light to those around them.

Pacific Rim is a region of the International Mission Board, SBC.