Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – 2 Kings 1-5
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Mark 1:17
Jesus: Come and follow Me, and I’ll send you to catch people instead of fish.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Several years ago I had a couple of fishing poles. They sat in my garage. I think I used them twice in the years I owned them. I finally threw them away after they were broken in one of my several moves. I wasn’t sad. I might have been fishing twice in the last forty years. I’m not a fisherman. I really don’t much enjoy fishing.
Fishing isn’t a very exciting sport to me. I suppose if I was good at it and could catch fish easily and it didn’t take much time to get my limit I might enjoy it, but it never happens that way for me. The last time I went fishing I spent a lot of time baiting lines and hooks and caught…nothing. I saw a lot of water. Got a pretty good sunburn. And got pretty bored with the whole thing. Like I said, I’m not a fisherman. If I never wet another line, it wouldn’t break my heart. Fishing again is not on my bucket list.
So when I read in Mark that Jesus tells Simon and Andrew, “Follow Me and I’ll send you to catch people instead of fish.” I wasn’t so impressed. These were fishermen and I didn’t belong with them. They knew how to catch fish and probably enjoyed their jobs. Jesus was pulling them away from their livelihood, one in which they prospered. He was going to let them keep their jobs but change their catch. If I had been there, I would have been a visitor and frankly His appeal to fishermen would not have impressed Me. I would have just gone home.
Have you ever thought about that? Would you have jumped at the chance to follow if Jesus asked you to go fishing? Now, knowing what I know about Him, my answer would be a resounding yes, but before I knew Him? I doubt it. So where am I going with all this? What’s the point?
I think it’s important to understand who Jesus is talking to as He asks Simon and Andrew to follow Him. These two men are fishermen. They love to fish. They know just about everything there is to know about fishing. It’s their livelihood. They own multiple boats. They hire others to help in their business. These guys love fishing! Jesus uses their love to explain what He wants them to do.
If Jesus came to me to invite me to join Him the same way He came to Simon and Andrew, I think He would appeal to my love of teaching or my love of technology or my love of strategic planning. He would pick something I do that I’m currently engaged in and enjoy. I think He would invite me to do those things for Him and use those skills to bring others into His kingdom.
Jesus talked about agrarian things in His parables, fig trees, olive branches, sheep, harvests, because the people around Him lived in an agrarian society. They understood His metaphors. They knew the language and signs and symbols because they lived with these things every day. They grew gardens in their yards because that’s how they got their food. They had sheep in their fields because that’s how they got their meat. They lived the parables Jesus used to teach the people around Him.
Today, I think Jesus would use traffic jams and unions strikes and political campaigns and pollution generators and wind and solar powered generators and all sorts of things we see and hear every day to explain the kingdom of heaven at hand and God’s desire to show us His grace and mercy. I think Jesus would share with us in ways that speak to our hearts using tools that help us clearly understand just how He wants us to live and share the message with others.
He would call us to follow Him just as He called Simon and Andrew. But He might not ask us to be fishers of men. He might ask us to follow Him to be taxi drivers and carry people to the kingdom or pilots to fly them away to heaven or who knows what occupation He might use to help you or me better understand He has a specific role in mind for us. He created each of us with a purpose. God’s plan will be fulfilled and we can choose to be part of it or not. But if we choose to follow Him, He has a plan for us, too. He has work for us to do in His plan. We can be part of the good work He does.
I will bring others into the kingdom, but not as a fisherman. I just don’t like to fish. That’s not what I do. Jesus knows that about me. But He does know what I like and what I do best. That’s where He calls me and that’s where He uses me in His great plan. What a Savior, Master, and Lord we serve!
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