By David ReayMonday 24 Apr 2017LifeWords DevotionalsFaithReading Time: 0 minutes
Transcript:
Read John 21:4-6
4 At dawn Jesus was standing on the beach, but the disciples couldn’t see who he was. 5 He called out, “Fellows, have you caught any fish?”
“No,” they replied.
6 Then he said, “Throw out your net on the right-hand side of the boat, and you’ll get some!” So they did, and they couldn’t haul in the net because there were so many fish in it. (NLT)
One definition of futility is doing the same thing over and over again with the same negative result. Many of us do this sort of thing out of habit. Churches can be guilty of it: we continue with the same activities and approaches despite there being no apparent fruit from it. We talk about being faithful rather than successful and use it as an excuse for not trying something different that might be both faithful and successful.
In our text, the disciples were doing what they usually did and getting no results. It took Jesus to prompt them to do something different with obvious results. For individuals and churches it might be time to consider casting our nets on the other side of the boat. To take a different approach, to try something new, to switch sides.
This is not an invitation to change for change sake, or an encouragement to be always restless. Rather, it can be that this same Jesus might bid us to do what we might not normally do. We are to be open to a new direction, a new way of seeing things and doing things. And then our ‘nets’ might be full.
Blessings
David Reay