Learning to Fish

“Follow Me, and I will make YOU…and you…and you fishers of men.” (Matthew 4:19) — JESUS

Our followership of Jesus becomes crucial in Jesus seeing through His mission in which He has called each believer to be involved. That is why His need was to make disciples, and our need is to take up where He left off. (The Great Co-mission, Matthew 28:19,20.) His Spirit today needs surrendered bodies in which He can dwell and carry on His work as His church reproduces and  multiplies Him…. not little Christ’s, but Christ-like. We are called to be like Him in our thinking, in our feeling, in our volition, in our attitudes, in our behavior, etc. He called the Twelve to spend their days with Him so they could ‘be with him’ and learn from Him, and see Him in action. Likewise, the Church today, empowered by the Spirit, is to continue what Jesus began. He has given the true church, the Body of Christ, authority to do that.

Summertime isn’t a time when the church goes on vacation; we (the church) may go on vacation physically, but Jesus goes where we go. He brings those divine appointments to us wherever we are and whenever He sees fit. Just like I noticed with Mary, Martha, and Lazarus. In the ladies’ minds, Jesus was late; (they were upset that Jesus, their friend hadn’t come sooner) in reality He was just on time, because His timing is always perfect. While Lazarus died, Jesus put him back in better condition than when Mary and Martha were so anxious and concerned about Him being sick.  But it’s just to say that God’s timing is always right. So if we happen to be on vacation, we take Him with us…we never know where, in His vineyard, we may be needed to speak His word, or do His work. I guess we could say that, in making us ‘fishers of men, fishing season is always in, disciple-making never stops, God intends for it to be a life-style to us with no ‘off-buttons.’  It all works best when we are fully surrendered to Him, living ‘on call’ and ready to give the reason for the Hope that lies in us. (1 Peter  3:15)

 The other thing about discipleship that is vital for us to see is the truth revealed in the statement you may have heard or read:

“GIVE me A FISH I eat for a day; TEACH ME TO FISH, I eat for a lifetime.”

I know what kind of provision I would prefer. I would much rather be able to eat for a lifetime than for a day, wouldn’t you? Both directions of that statement work for the receivers’ benefit. From the standpoint of the disciples need, we want to be equipped by God’s Spirit so we are learning from Him constantly how to fish, where to fish, what to fish for, why to fish, etc. From letting God use us to impact others for doing His will and following Him in mission, it’s important that we encourage others not to settle for being given a mere fish, when God wants to teach them to fish so there is permanent supply.  Once they learn to fish, they are set to effectively serve God the rest of their life here on this side of heaven. What a plan…from such a perfect and awesome God!  Enjoy the fishing; never quit.