Hello my “Walking with Jesus” friends,
You and I live in a world driven by comparison, do you agree? Athletic teams compete and are constantly comparing their team rosters. Students are constantly comparing their university experience while faculty compare their students. Consumers compare products and vendors and their shopping experience. Teenagers compare their family to the families of their friends.
But here’s a question for us all to consider on this Friday: How do you compare the genuineness, the authenticity, the dynamic, the power of the relationship with GOD which various world religions offer?
For Muslims the world over Ramadan is concluding. For a full month, devout Muslims have fasted from food and often even liquids, from sunrise to sunset, and they’ve intensified their prayers, in hopes of achieving a more significant response from Allah. For Jews, Passover was from sundown on April 5 to sundown on April 13th, and in that time, they of course celebrated their uniqueness as a people delivered from Egyptian slavery by God Himself. For Christians, we’ve walked through Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Silent Saturday and resurrection Easter Sunday, the weekend of April 6-9. So, how do you compare those religious experiences?
Join me please, for a few more minutes with disciples Peter, John, James, Thomas, Nathaniel and I think Andrew and Philip, as they are having breakfast, cooked by resurrected Jesus, on the shoreline of the Sea of Galilee. John, an eyewitness, recorded this remarkable event for us in John 21. Jesus is concluding a powerful, life changing conversation with Peter.
We’ve been eavesdropping and watching the change in Peter as he finds his relationship restored with the Jesus he had denied! Peter is hearing his life purpose refocused and re-energized by a fresh commission from Jesus. Jesus has just said to Peter “Follow Me!” (John 21:19)
The look on Peter’s face is deeply reflective. He turns his head away from Jesus and looks back at the net of flapping fish, and his boat, and back out across the water of Lake Galilee. His mind is running now…Peter’s mind is flashing back to this very same lake, in fact this very same shoreline. Peter is remembering when he and Jesus had met in an unexpected rendezvous and Jesus had spoken those very same two words to him. Peter’s life changed that day. It had happened several months before and Dr. Luke tells us the story. It’s powerful.
Let’s join Peter in remembering. I’m sure Peter was comparing who he was now to who he was that day, and wondering what difference it has made to spend these several months ‘walking with Jesus’?
Peter and some of these same disciples having breakfast with Jesus, had been on that day, several months ago, washing their nets after a long night of empty net fishing. They were tired, perhaps a little irritable and wanted nothing more than to go home, have some breakfast and get some sleep.
Jesus was down the beach a ways, with a large and growing crowd around Him. Jesus was becoming fairly famous, in those days, as a new voice speaking very powerful spiritual truth and occasionally doing an amazing miracle. This crowd was growing, and Jesus was leading the crowd down the shoreline as He spoke.
Eventually Jesus reached the place Peter and his tired fishermen friends were busy cleaning their nets getting ready to go home. Suddenly Jesus did something amazing! Luke writes: “Jesus got into one of the boats, the one belonging to Simon Peter, and asked him to put out a little from shore. Then Jesus sat down and taught the people from the boat.” (Luke 5:1-3)
Now if you’ve ever spent time with boats and water, you know there are things called waves at the shoreline so that a boat needs something to hold it in place or it will drift away in the waves. That tells me Peter, the owner of this boat, was suddenly focused, holding his boat steady while this uninvited rabbi is using his boat as a platform and pulpit!
Remember, Peter is tired and perhaps now, more than a little irritated! Luke continues the story: “When Jesus had finished speaking, He said to Peter, ‘Put out into deep water and let down the nets for a catch.” Now what do you suppose tired, wet Peter was thinking about now?
Luke continues: “Simon Peter answered, ‘Rabbi, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” (Luke 5:5) Does that surprise you, my friends? Peter had met Jesus and heard Him preach and seen Him do an amazing miracle or two, but Peter didn’t really know Jesus very well, and as I have said, I’m imagining he was dead beat tired and probably quite frustrated after a long night of empty net fishing.
But let’s learn an important lesson here friends… God often does some of HIS best work in our lives when we aren’t necessarily seeking a powerful spiritual experience! That’s why it’s so important to live your life ready, available, willing to let God to surprise you! That’s what Peter did that morning, and because he was willing to accommodate Jesus and pick up the oars and row his boat back out onto the lake, Peter’s life changed that day!
But what if Peter had said “NO! Get out of my boat, I don’t have time, I’m too tired, maybe some other day, but not today…”?? Have you and I ever done that with God?
Luke’s story continues: “When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break. So, they signaled their partners with the other boat to come and help them, and they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink!” (Luke 5:6,7)
By the way, those other guys in that other boat are some of the very same disciples sitting with Peter and resurrected Jesus on the Lake Galilee shoreline in the John 21 story we’ve been experiencing together. Remember they had fished this very same lake all night with nothing but empty nets!!
Luke writes: “When Simon Peter saw this, he fell at Jesus’ knees and said, ‘Go away from me Rabbi, I am a sinful man!’… But Jesus said to Peter, ‘Don’t be afraid, from now on you will fish for people.’ So, they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Jesus.” (Luke 5:8-11)
Follow Me are two very powerful words and Jesus spoke them fairly often when He saw the hearts of people were tender and ready to step into an authentic, vibrant, deeper relationship with God which would propel them on a life path of purpose, making a difference in our world.
So again, I ask, how many Muslims heard God say “Follow Me” during the month of Ramadan fasting? How many Jews heard God say “Follow Me” during Passover this year? How many Christians heard God say “Follow Me” during the Easter season this year? And what about you and me?
Compare your relationship with God today with whatever the relationship was that you had with God three months ago, or three years ago, or 30 years ago? What change do you see? And what about this: has God used those two powerful words with you… “FOLLOW ME!? And how have you responded?
As I often love to do, here’s a reflective worship song that will help you ponder that question. . .
Today’s Scripture is Luke 5:1-11.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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