We Have Toiled All Night But At Your Word

This is a passage that was spoken about at the men's getaway just a few days ago and it stuck with me...

"On one occasion, while the crowd was pressing in on him to hear the word of God, he was standing by the lake of Gennesaret, and he saw two boats by the lake, but the fishermen had gone out of them and were washing their nets. Getting into one of the boats, which was Simon's, he asked him to put out a little from the land. And he sat down and taught the people from the boat. And when he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, 'Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.' And Simon answered, 'Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.' And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking." - Luke 5:1-6 ESV

If you have been fishing all night and have caught nothing the last thing you want to do is go back out.

This brings many things to mind but at the moment I am thinking about Godly leadership. Jesus asks to speak from their boat. He asks them to go out again. He doesn't demand it but He Is believing His Father in Heaven and speaking about divine things.

Who will talk about grace? Who will introduce God into the conversation? Who will say, 'Let us go out into the deep? I know it isn't convenient right now but I'm going let's go together'?

My outreach leader makes phone calls to the team every week on Saturday morning and if people are doing something else he just encourages them in what they are doing but that call means something. He is a man willing to stand in the boat and preach. He is willing to say, 'Let's launch out into the deep and fish.'

"They signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. But when Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, 'Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.' For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish that they had taken..." - Luke 5:7-9 ESV

Peter said that then but he later became the man who stood up to preach when no one else would. Church history tells us that Peter died a martyr with great dignity as a man of faith and leadership.

Thank God for the men and women who are willing to talk about Jesus and say His name when everyone else just speaks in bland generalities of goodness and morality. Thank God for the people who will say, 'Let's go and see what fish the Father has waiting for us' just past our comfort zone.

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Ruffled Feathers

God wants us to be free.

"But the ruler of the synagogue, indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the people, 'There are six days in which work ought to be done. Come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day.' Then the Lord answered him, 'You hypocrites! Does not each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or his donkey from the manger and lead it away to water it? And ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?' As he said these things, all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him." - Luke 13:14-17 ESV

I love this passage. The day of rest is a great day to be free. It's Friday so there are millions of people working today who don't have to go to a job tomorrow. Many are saying, 'Thank God It's Friday.' because they want to be free even if it is just freedom from the restrictions of work for a few days. Monday a lower percentage of those same people are saying, 'Thank God I have a job.' because the money and possibly the benefits of their job give them freedom in other ways.

Something started to happen to this woman eighteen years before she met Jesus. Perhaps it was gradual but she was losing mobility. She must have learned to live with it. That's what people do. They learn to live with the issues that won't go away.

Then one day when she was resting Jesus healed her. Did she have rest from her bent over condition. No. Not yet. She was resting in the rest God prescribed.

The rulers of the synagogue prided themselves in the knowledge that they were 'sons of Abraham'. Part of why they were ashamed was because Jesus identified the woman as a 'daughter of Abraham'. She was like them. She is like all of us but they were so occupied with the rules that they lost sight of the miracle.

Freedom. I want people to have it. If Jesus never walked her way then she would have died a bent over person.

"And behold, some men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they were seeking to bring him in and lay him before Jesus, but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith, he said, 'Man, your sins are forgiven you.' And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, 'Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?' When Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answered them, 'Why do you question in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Rise and walk'? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins' - he said to the man who was paralyzed - 'I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.' And immediately he rose up before them and picked up what he had been lying on and went home, glorifying God." - Luke 5:18-25 ESV

Let's tear off the roof to lower people down and see Jesus.

"And when he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to cry out and say, 'Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!' " - Mark 10:47 ESV

The blind man yelled at the top of his lungs. It bothered the people around him.

Our methods might bother a few people. Jesus wasn't obnoxious. He did what He did and it shamed them when He calmly explained it to them.

I am free and I plan to use my freedom in ways that I know will bother some people. I can't heal like Jesus. Jesus healed every person that came to him. He never walked away unsure what just happened.

The power we have is just as amazing. We can rip off they roof and lower people down to see Jesus.

I wonder if those same men came back later and fixed the roof. The scriptures don't say anything one way or the other about it.

I suppose if we plan to have Jesus over we aught to expect that there might be some property damage also.

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