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." Luke 5:5
Simon couldn't believe his ears. Did Jesus really expect him to go out there and start throwing his nets again? Right after he had finished the messy job of cleaning them up? And after a whole night of tough work--all for nothing? We can almost picture Simon's face clouding up for a retort like: "Nothing doing! I'm no fool."
Had he done so, quite likely we never would have heard of fisherman Simon, who became Peter, the heroic disciple. He would have missed the chance of his life. This was a crucial turning point. Jesus was giving a discipleship test. Was Simon's faith up to it? His answer proved it was.
Our Lord still poses such discipleship tests. The tasks He assigns are not always to our liking--to be His witnesses when we fear we'll be rejected, to attend church services instead of sleeping in, to teach a fidgety Sunday school class, to take a big percentage off the top of each paycheck for the Lord's work, and so on. Frankly, we'd rather not.
But not doing so may mean missing the chance of a lifetime. Peter did not lose a thing that day by taking the Lord at His Word. Neither shall we.
PRAYER: Give us humble hearts and alert minds, dear Lord, ready for our discipleship tests to act upon Your Word; in Jesus' name. Amen.
(Devotions from "The Abundant Life" copyright 1998, CPH. All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be printed, reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission of Concordia Publishing House. Permission is granted for one-time e-mailing of this link to a friend. For information on other devotional material, please contact CPH at 800-325-3040 or visit CPH at www.cph.org.)
Today's Bible Readings: Isaiah 56-58 Romans 11:1-18
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