Message: In Luke 5 Peter is minding his own
business cleaning his nets after a long night of work with nothing to show for
it. Jesus first asked him permission to sit in his empty boat to teach the
people. After this is he told Peter to put his nets back in the water on the
other side. Peter felt reluctant about it, but did it anyway because Jesus told
him to. The result was an unbelievable overflow of fish that shocked Peter and
his fishing partners. At this point Peter was completely humbled before Jesus
and told him to get away from him because he knew he was a sinful man. Peter
knew he was standing next to someone holy. Even though he didn’t even know the
gravity of it all yet. This is when Jesus tells Peter to follow him and he did.
He literally left the fishing business with his father and went with Jesus.
Command: Leave behind the security of trusting
in what we know or have always done.
Promise: If God calls you away from something
that he has blessed, he will walk with you in whatever he has next.
Warning: Walking away from our comfort will
be hard!
Application: As I contemplated this story I
thought about the fact that Jesus had just blessed Peter’s fishing business in
just a quick moment! The temptation would have been to stick with that and ride
that wave for a while. Jesus basically told him “you think that’s great? I’m
gonna do the same thing in you but with people!”. Peter was completely humbled
and he left everything he knew to follow Jesus. As I read that I thought about
my own tendencies and comfort places. I have been at the same job for many
years and if God suddenly blessed it and then told me to leave it I might be
tempted to question that move and opt for the blessing in my comfort zone. I
really want to believe that I would take off and follow Jesus into the unknown,
but if I’m really honest I don’t know how I would respond. The challenge to
myself is to follow his lead and not make my decisions to stay or move on based
upon the success or failure.
