| The Bait and the Catch - #5574 |
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Thursday, May 22, 2008
Download MP3 (right click to save) I used to work with someone on our team who was a fanatical fisherman! He actually told me about a boy who was starting very young down that same road, or stream as the case may be. At that point, James was only three years old, but his dad had already taught him to fish! The first time they went fishing together Dad gave him a cricket to use as bait. Well, beginners luck - James caught himself a little sunfish with that cricket. And then, just for fun, Dad decided to let his boy try some serious bait - what fishermen call stink bait. It's got something like pieces of liver in it. Now, I personally wouldn't bite on it, but they weren't trying to catch a radio host. Wouldn't you know it! Little James reeled in a seven-pound catfish! When Dad tried to get him to go back to the cricket bait - no way, Dad! He had discovered what kind of bait attracts the big ones!
I'm Ron Hutchcraft, and I want to have A Word With You today about "The Bait and the Catch."
Our word for today from the Word of God comes from Proverbs 31:30-31. This whole chapter is actually God's description of a woman who is, in the words of the chapter, "Worth far more than rubies." Who has, as it says, "noble character," who ends up with a husband who "has full confidence in her," and who, "takes his seat among the elders of the land." Hey, she caught a good one! Well, here's her idea of attractive: "Charm is deceptive and beauty is fleeting, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised." And then it says, "Give her the reward she has earned." The woman God praises and the woman a quality man praises is a woman who focuses on having a heart that's right. Physical appearance, or some kind of social manipulating - that's an increasingly radical blueprint for being a woman when we live in a world that glorifies the physical, the sensual, the sexy. But, many women don't seem to understand what little James already knows - the kind of bait you offer determines the kind of catch you get! Sometimes you'll hear a woman making the all too accurate complaint that "all men care about is the physical." Most women I'm acquainted with are not interested in being a sex object to men, or a thing rather than a person, or body parts rather than a whole person. They want a relationship with men, not a sexual game where they're just another conquest. And that's in line with what God wants. In 1 Timothy 5:2, He commands the young men to "treat the younger women as sisters with absolute purity." But apparently a lot of women don't understand how hard they're making it for good men to think pure, because a woman is more stimulated by touch than by sight. She may not understand the message that she's sending; the triggers that she's activating by what she wears, how she moves, how she flirts. Frankly, too many women are wearing things that are too tight, too low, too high, or just not enough! Since that's the way of getting male attention, I guess they'll attract the fish that just want that kind of bait. And thus, the tragedy of our superficial, mostly physical, usually sinful, mostly doomed relationships. In 1 Peter 3, God describes the package that a truly beautiful woman offers. He says, "Your beauty should not come from outward adornment. Instead, it should be that of your inner self, the unfading beauty." Those who carry the radiance and the innocence of an inner Jesus glow offer the beauty that Hollywood can never match. So, don't go for that bait that draws the little fish. Even a little boy knows if you want the best, you need to offer what attracts a quality catch. Share or Bookmark This Page       |
