“And (Jesus) entered into one of the ships, that was Simon’s, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And He sat down and taught the people out of the ship. Now when He left speaking, He said unto Simon, "Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught (catch)….10b “From henceforth you will catch men.”
The first four disciples were fishermen; therefore, nets were important to them. In Luke 5:1ff, Jesus commanded His disciples to “let down their nets for a catch.” After they caught a great number of fish, Jesus said to Peter, “from henceforth you will catch men.” What can nets teach us? Meaning of the Nets Nets are used to catch fish. (duh?) Peter, Andrew, James and John could not catch fish until they let down their nets. Jesus used this event to illustrate for the disciples that “from henceforth thou shalt catch men.” Jesus meant that they would “let down their nets” for a different kind of fishing. We are to "let down our nets" for the same purpose. How do we let down our nets? We can go from house-to-house witnessing to people. We can take opportunities to witness as they arise in daily life. We can attempt to get people to attend Sunday School and worship services so that they can hear about Jesus. There is really no limit to the ways that we can “let down our nets” to catch people for Jesus. The problem is that we often have the same attitude of Simon Peter when he said: “We have toiled all the night and have taken nothing. (Luke 5:5a) I can hear it now: “We have tried and tried to reach people, but they never give a positive response.” We need to remember the old cliché: “Jesus didn’t call us to be successful; He called us to be faithful.” We need to remember what Peter said in Luke 5:5b: “Nevertheless at your word, we will let down the net.” You can “let down your nets” anyway that you can, just be sure that you let them down. Let me make a confession here. After fifty-three years of “letting down my nets,” I have never been comfortable going house-to-house and calling on people who do not know me and did not know that I was coming. But God did not call me to tell others about Him only doing what is comfortable. In the four gospels, we are given challenges to “let down our nets.” Marring the nets Luke 3:6 tells us that “when they had this done, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes, and their net broke.” The net that they used to catch fish broke from the strain of the great number of fish. I do not know a lot about fish nets, but I do know that they have to be tended to or they will break. Nets even become worn from use. Perhaps this was the problem with the disciple’s nets, and it could be our problem as well. We have been so busy going about “business as usual” in our churches that our nets are not able to take the strain of winning people to Jesus. Indeed, our nets can become marred and possibly useless. However, wouldn’t it be great if we could catch so many people that our nets would break? What would we do then? Would we quit fishing? In Matthew 4, when Jesus called James and John, they were in their father Zebedee’s boat mending their nets. Good news! Marred nets can be mended. How? God is the God of grace and forgiveness; therefore, He is in the mending business. He has empowered us to catch people and He will forgive us and fill us with a new desire to catch people. Jesus will mend the broken parts of our lives that keep us from letting down our nets. Let's ask Jesus to renew us and fill us with a resolve to catch people. What has been broken can be mended. This includes us. We need to "let down our nets for a catch." If our "nets" need mending, the One who called us to His service will mend our marred nets so that we can be about His business. Bro. Joe
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AuthorDr. Joe Beauchamp is the author of this blog and website. Categories
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September 2021
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