The Relational Church

Luke 5:1-11, John 21:1, Thessalonians 4:11-12

Faith is relying on God to do the impossible.  Throughout the Bible, people were in situations having no chance, but God succeeded despite their evaluations.  With God, the odds of success are mathematically represented as 1:1 (or 100 percent certainty that He will be victorious).

In the two passages within Luke 5 and John 21 the setting is the same in both real-life dramas.  Men are fishing.  They catch nothing as they try for hours with all their fishing expertise.  Then Jesus arrives and directs them to fish again.  In each story the reader can almost see the disciples roll their eyes thinking something like “this is a waste of time, as the fish aren’t here today so why bother.”  Today’s people are no different as we look at the odds of success and, when we feel that there isn’t a possibility of succeeding, we quit.

It is interesting that these two stories differ greatly in the time these two similar stories are recounted.  In the Luke story, the disciples are brand new to following Jesus and haven’t really witnessed miracles so it’s understandable that they lack faith.  However, the John 21 events occur when Jesus has not only crucified but after He has appeared several times after He had arisen.  Yet, in this story, Jesus asks them this time to cast their nets although they didn’t recognize who He was, for it was very early in the morning.  On this occasion they did what they were asked to do which is to cast their nets on the right side of their boat.

The results of their trying to fish, this time with Jesus at their side, were nothing less than remarkable.  The harvest in fish was so great that they could not even haul in their nets.  All this occurred in the same waters that were fished for hours before without success.  How could this happen?

Know that God is with us when we cast our nets in spreading the Gospel to all who will hear it.  If we toil with our quick minds, come up with fancy slogans or gadgets we will have a poor or no harvest.  However, if we fish by listening and doing what, when, where, and with who God directs us to, then our haul of new believers will be as great as the fish caught by the disciples many years ago.  Have faith and let Jesus be your fishing partner, always.

-Michael Zerkich

Image by: Seamus Murray (flickr)