Friday February 3, 2017

 

What is the one thing you have to accomplish in your lifetime? What is the mission you have been placed on earth to accomplish? If you are a follower of Jesus, or if you are considering becoming one there is a mission that He wants you to be a part of. This is a mission that is far more important to Him than how good a person you are or how spiritual you are; it is the mission for which He gave His life.

 

Jesus’ first followers had been fishing all night without catching anything when He called them. They were in the process of collecting their nets in order to go home when Jesus asked them to take their boat into deeper waters and cast their nets. Although they did as Jesus instructed them to do, they had no expectation of catching anything. However, this time around, when they raised their nets it was so full with fish that the nets began to break. They had to call out to their parents to come to them in other boats to help them gather the catch. All who were present realized that they had just witnessed a miracle; they realized that Jesus was more than a mere mortal. Jesus then said to them, “If you follow me I will make you fishers of men”. They followed Him.

 

Three years after that miraculous catch, Jesus was nailed to a cross and died at which time the disciples returned to fishing. However, three days later Jesus rose from the dead and he gathered them in order to fulfill the initial mission of making them fishers of men.

 

Matthew 28:16-20 NIV

 

Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”

 

To better understand these verses it is important that we remember that this was the resurrected Jesus speaking to the disciples; now they truly knew that He had all authority. It was no longer theoretical authority it was proven authority by having overcome the invincible enemy, death. Now, they fully knew that Jesus was capable of fulfilling His promise of making them fishers of men. I can imagine them perhaps saying, “Now we understand; we did what Jesus told us and He filled our nets with a miraculous catch. If we do what He is instructing us to do, He will cause us to become fishers of men. All we have to do is obey and He does the rest”. The only miracle that is greater in numbers other than the miraculous catch is the amount of people the disciples have fished for Jesus and still do to this day.

 

If you are a follower of Jesus or if you are considering becoming one, I want you to know that Jesus has an impossible mission for you; He wants you to become a fisher of men. All you need to do is take your boat into deeper but familiar waters and cast your nets. The rest is up to God. I repeat, if you are a follower of Jesus or you are considering becoming one, the one thing you must accomplish, the reason for which you are here on this earth, is to fulfill the impossible mission of becoming a fisher of men.