July 30, 2023

Luke 5: 5  Simon answered, “Master, we’ve worked hard all night and haven’t caught anything. But because you say so, I will let down the nets.” (NIV)

True faith is actively obedient.*

I am not a fisherman . . . fisherwoman . . . whatever. I once spent hours (or maybe time just stood still) on the banks of a canal, trying to catch fish. I was using the same kind of equipment and bait as the family next to me and they were catching fish. Just a few feet away from them stood I, catching nothing. If Jesus had come along and said, “Get your pole and your bait and go around to the other side of that fisherfamily,” what would I have said? What would I have done?

We aren’t told if Peter obeyed Jesus just to humor him or out of his faith in Jesus’ power over fish. What we do know is this: Peter did what Jesus told him to because Jesus told him to. Did it make sense? It doesn’t to me and I doubt if it did to Peter. But Peter demonstrated the kind of faith we should all be looking to grow into. It was all well and good for Peter to declare, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God,” (Matthew 16: 16) but throwing his nets over the other side of the boat proved his faith in Jesus as Lord in a way that a good confession never could.

Do you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God? Good. Blessed are you because this wasn’t revealed to you by man, but by the Father in heaven. But better: prove it. Do what he says because he says so, even if it doesn’t make sense. 

Have you ever heard the Master say something very difficult to you? If you haven’t, I question whether you have ever heard Him say anything at all.*