Ron Hutchcraft Ministries - Big Time Fishing - #8278

Monday, May 25, 2009

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When it came time for our family vacations when I was a kid, one person had the deciding vote for where we’d go–my Dad. He did the work; he picked the vacation, which meant we would go fishing. I thought it was boring—my Dad thought it was great. Listen, he would have gotten along great with a guy named Simon Peter. Yes, he was one of Jesus’ disciples, but he never stopped fishing.

I’m Ron Hutchcraft. Simon, the professional fisherman, had fished all night according to the Bible and caught nothing. Jesus asked to use his boat to speak to a large crowd on the beach, then Jesus gave him counterintuitive orders to go out at midday and fish in the deep part of the lake. Simon obeyed even though it didn’t make sense, and he got the biggest catch of his life. And that’s when Jesus said: “’From now on you will catch men.’ So they pulled their boats up on shore, left everything and followed Him” (Luke 5:10-11 ).

There’ something I love about this. Jesus calls Simon to use what he’s wired for, what he loves to do–fish–except from now on to do it to bring people to Jesus. Well, think of what he knows about fishing: go where the fish are, use different approaches to catch different kinds.

See, Jesus’ call to you is probably like Simon’s, not to abandon who you are and the way He’s wired you, but to make it eternally significant. He wants to use your natural love, your influence, your instincts, and your biography as a bridge to bring people to heaven with you. He wants to use who you are to help people find out who He is and to help you make a far greater difference than you have ever made before.

That is the dedicated purpose, by the way, of a website called ALifeThatMatters.org. Visit us there, would you?

This radio program references: Luke 5:10-11