Today’s Podcast
Today’s Bible reading plan:
Read it in a year – Acts 1-2
see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)
Today’s Devotional
Luke 5:4
Jesus: Move out into deeper water, and drop your nets to see what you’ll catch.
What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?
Simon was a fisherman and knew about fishing. That’s how he made his living. He and his family probably fished for years. They supplied their village with fish. They sold their catch in the markets and earned a pretty good living. So much so that they had several boats, lots of nets, hired other workers. Simon had a pretty good business catching fish, so he knew what he was doing.
But Jesus asked him to launch out into deeper water and see what he would catch. Jesus was a carpenter by trade. He knew a lot about wood, but not so much about fish, you’d think. He understood what wood you should use to make the boats Simon used, but how to use those boats to catch fish? Folks wouldn’t have bet money on His knowledge of fishing. But Simon pushed out into deeper water and dropped his nets and if you know the rest of the story, you know all those nets he had been mending started breaking with the weight of the fish he caught.
But I thought about something else as I read those words today. Jesus asks us to move into deeper water, too. What does He mean by that? I think we get so consumed in the shallowness of life that we forget that Jesus want us to launch out into the deep. He wants us to get past the shallow things of life and dig deep. But into what?
Maybe into His word first of all. We can’t expect to learn much about what He wants from us if we don’t read His instruction manual. We can’t understand much about who He is and what He wants to do in our lives if we don’t get into His word and see what He says to us about His purpose, the life He lived and the more abundant life He promises.
That understanding doesn’t come from just casual reading or just listening to someone else read God’s word every once in a while. It’s important that we move into deeper water. Take a passage of scripture and let it work on you. Figure out what God says to the people the words were originally written to and the culture in which they heard those words. Then apply those words to your culture and your life. How does God want to speak to you within the framework of your culture and your life?
What does God want you to change or what does He want you to do because of what you’ve learned from a deeper study of His word? That’s what this moving deeper is all about. It’s like getting married. When you first get married, you think you know a lot about each other. You dated for a while before you were engaged. And then once engaged, you really got to know each other. You talked about all your plans for life together. You talked about money and kids and careers and places to live. You talked about everything you could think of to talk about. You thought you knew each other well.
Then you got married. Suddenly, you figure out you didn’t know each other quite as well as you thought you did. Those little habits and idiosyncrasies you never saw pop up when you are in each others company all the time. Not that they are good or bad, it’s just new stuff that you find out that you didn’t know. Maybe it’s little things like which side of the bed she prefers to sleep on. Or does he shave first or brush his teeth first? Does he leave his dirty clothes on the bathroom floor or put them in a hamper? Does she save the dishes until there is a decent amount to wash or wash them as soon as your through eating?
You see, it takes a while to really get to know someone. We learn more about our husband or wife each day. We move deeper in love as we get to know each other. I’m afraid most of our divorce problems today are because we don’t appreciate what it means to move deeper into a relationship. We want to stay on the surface. We want to keep that shallow infatuation that brought us together and don’t want to spend the time or effort to really get to understand each other beyond that. That’s one of the reasons divorce is so rampant.
But Jesus invites us to move deeper with Him, too. Get closer, learn more about Him, get to know His habits and idiosyncrasies. He wants us to really know Him. It’s the only way we can really figure out what He wants us to do and what He wants us to be. He has a purpose for each of us and we can find it when we move into deeper water with Him. You never know what you’ll catch when you do.
The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved. In accordance with the requirements for FTC full disclosure, I may have affiliate relationships with some or all of the producers of the items mentioned in this post who may provide a small commission to me when purchased through this site.