I used to love fishing. Sitting on the riverbank or just looking at a vast ocean brought peace into my heart and back into my soul. I haven’t been fishing for a long time now but one day I will get the desire to just get the gear, put it into the car and have a day spent fishing with my husband. However going fishing in the natural is not what this blog post is about. It is about going spiritual fishing or fishing for men and women who desperately need God in their life.
God gave me a vision of someone fishing the other night and as I thought about the concepts of fishing, I began to get a clearer picture of what Jesus said fishing for men looked like. The fisherman was the Christians (God’s children). The line was an outstretching. The bait was the love of God, the goodness of God and the Word of God. The ocean was the world and the fish were the people in the world.
Before I explain, I just want to further examine the reason the fish (people in the world) would want to take the bait. They have so many attractions and lures in the world – how can we make our bait the best and the most desirable. I heard a story once about a dog that had a little bone. That dog was holding that bone and wouldn’t let it go. A man standing near stated that the only way to get the dog to drop the little bone is to offer the dog a bone much bigger, juicier and tastier. That’s what we need to do. Offer the world a love from God that is so unconditional that they desire it, offer them a peace that surpasses all their understanding and offer them a joy that doesn’t come from outward things and circumstances but comes from an inner knowing of Who God is.
When we go fishing we just sit on the bank or stand on the sand and just wait. In fishing, the striving only comes once we have caught the fish. It takes more effort on our behalf to reel the fish in that it does to wait for the fish to take the bait. In our daily lives, we need to walk and conduct ourselves so that people can see the goodness of God and the love of God in our lives. They can hear the Word of God through our testimony of how good God has been in our lives. But before people will take the bait, there must be the line. There must be an outstretching from our world to theirs. Just like the fish will never get up and walk on the sand with us, so the people in the world will never come to us unless we go to them first. We need to bring our world into theirs.
Jesus gave us all a commission to go out into the world and preach the gospel. The methods for each of us may be different but the eternal results will be the same. Jesus is coming back soon and it is time to dust off our fishing gear and go fishing again. Just like in the natural, the results are worth it, so it is in the spiritual. You are catching people for eternity which is your heavenly reward.
So what are we waiting for. It’s time to keep living the life God intended for us and go fishing so that others can live the life God intended for them. Have a blessed week!
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