Luke 8:30-35
And Jesus asked him, saying, What is thy name? And he said, Legion: because many devils were entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go out into the deep. And there was there an herd of many swine feeding on the mountain: and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into them. And he suffered them. Then went the devils out of the man, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the lake, and were choked. When they that fed them saw what was done, they fled, and went and told it in the city and in the country. Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.

“What is your name?” Jesus asks, and all he can say is, “Legion.” Those devils literally defined him. They gave him his name and his identity. They dictated everything about his life. He was infamous in that area as Legion, the man full of devils, the tormented one of the tombs and of the night, crying, hurting, untamable. But then Jesus changes all of that. He gives him a new name and a new identity as a child of God, a follower of Christ. He gives him a new life of freedom from that past so he can go forward into something that wasn’t possible before.

What would you say if Jesus asked you your name? Not what everybody calls you, but whatever it is that seems to define you and give you your identity. Is it a sin from your past for which you can’t forgive yourself? Is it a hurt that you can’t let go? Is it a struggle that seems to consume you? An illness, a trial, a failure, a loss, or a lack? But you are not that thing that you’ve done or that that thing that was done to you. You are not the darkness that consumes or the force that hinders. And you are certainly not hopeless or forgotten.

Jesus went to this man where he was. He met him in the midst of great struggle and pain. He cared about his suffering. He wanted to help him. And He had the power to set him free. He had the power to make him new. He had the ability to change his life so completely. And He can do the same for us. Jesus loves us more that we can even imagine. He cares about everything that we face in our lives. He wants to set us free, give us new life, help us to have that identity in Him that overcomes anything else that is part of our story so we can sit at His feet with a right mind and a right heart and then go forward into what He has for us to do for Him.