For he and all his companions were astonished at the catch of fish they had taken, and so were James and John, the sons of Zebedee, Simon's partners. Then Jesus said to Simon, "Don't be afraid; from now on you will catch men." So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed him. Luke 5:9-11
It was earlier in their lives, that these fishermen came to believe that Jesus was the Messiah. They had been fishing all night without catching anything. Jesus tells them to go out again. He was in the boat with them. He tells them this time to cast out in deeper water. As they throw their nets deeper in obedience, so many fish are caught, they call out for their fishing companions to come out and help gather in the fish.
They were following Jesus as the Messiah, promised of God, come to establish the Kingdom in Israel. After they caught a large number of fish, Jesus told them to follow Him and He would make them fishers of men. After the resurrection, the person of Jesus and the call on their lives was far greater than what they had understood three years earlier. He connected fishing with evangelism. He was not in the boat with them this time, but on the shore. His presence and power in them did not require His physical body but spiritual power. We cannot evangelize with our own methods and energy. It must be done with the power and the Spirit of God.
God begins His work with those who admit their own inability, their own lack of power, and turn instead to the one true source of power.
John Westley was a brilliant student of the languages and of religion. Wesley did not have this confidence, but admired their faith. This encounter led to his conversion at a small meeting house in Aldersgate, England on May 24, 1738 when he was reading Luther’s Preface to the Romans. Luther was describing his encounter with the living Lord. As he read of the importance of faith in Christ he wrote in his journal. “I felt my heart strangely warmed… I felt I did trust in Christ. Christ alone for my salvation, an assurance was given me that he had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.”
Before that time he was always asking what he could do for God and after that time he asked what God could do for him. He was no longer straining to win God’s favor, God’s favor was bestowed on him and he knew it.
Do you realize that the living Lord encounters people through the Holy Spirit within life circumstances? Sometimes it is through other believers in the most interesting ways where people hear the voice, or read something in a book, or hear a word on the radio or TV, that everything begins to make sense and begin the search. The living Lord is not confined in church buildings.
Application: Have you been open to let Jesus encounter you or are you resisting any prompting of the Holy Spirit? Prov 8:17 says “I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me.” Have you had a Christ encounter? Then you qualify for being a fisherman or fisherwoman. Spread the word of the living Savior and wait and watch what He chooses to do. He is alive.
Prayer: "I pray...," Paul writes in Ephesians 1:18-19, "that your eyes may be enlightened in order that you may know...his incomparably great power...the working of his mighty strength...."
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