Luke 12:11-12

When conflict occurs, the natural reaction is to blame someone else and defend yourself. But believers must respond differently. Once, I was publicly chastised for a wrong I had not committed. Thankfully, the Lord enabled me to remain calm rather than react angrily. Praying first isalways the best response in a crisis. When we do, God supernaturally provides that which we can t muster up ourselves.

• Spiritual discernment. The Lord, who perfectly understands the source of every problem, can give us insight beyond our limited perspective. Perhaps there’s been a communication breakdown, a feeling of jealousy on the other person’s part, or a mistake we unknowingly made. The Holy Spirit can show us how to approach our accuser and see beyond hurtful words or actions.
• A quiet spirit. Our human nature wants to react quickly so that we can defend ourselves. That’s why we must first deliberately focus our attention on the Lord and experience the inward peace He alone makes available to us (John 14:27).
• Wisdom. Jesus told His disciples the Holy Spirit would give them wise words to say when they faced hostile authorities. He’ll do the same for you. Ask Him to put a seal on your lips until He shows you what to say and when (Ps. 141:3).

We don’t have to react to criticism with anger and self-protection the way the world does. Instead, we are called to represent Christ in every situation by depending on Him. In responding as He directs, we bring Him glory and cause unbelievers to want to know the source of our strength.

As the summer arrives each year, I revisit many fond memories of fishing outings with my older brother and grandfather. Living near Lake Erie, my grandfather would thrill us with stories of his great fishing adventures with Northern Pike and Muskie. They were great fighters and would continue that fight long after they had been pulled from the water and thrown into the boat.

My own fishing career, if you could call it a fishing career, was far less dramatic than my grandfather’s adventures. My career began at Lake Pymatuning. Whenever we came to visit in the summers, my grandfather would take my older brother and me to fish is this kinder, gentler lake. Unfortunately, I was never successful enough as an angler to know the thrill of catching many fish. What I was successful at was hooking someone in the boat! Both my brother and I bear the scars of fishing hooks in our arms and legs.

Even though my angling career was not very successful, I liked to think that I was following in a great tradition—not only one begun with my grandfather, but one that began with a young carpenter’s call to four fishermen to follow him. I read with amazement how these four fishermen “immediately left their nets and followed him” (Mark 1:18). What was it about this call to follow and the invitation to become “fishers of men” that would compel such a dramatic response?

The notion of “fishing for people” was actually not a foreign idea for those familiar with the Hebrew prophets. The prophets used this term to describe God (Ezekiel 29:4ff, 38:4). God was the great “angler” catching people for judgment—judgment that preceded the coming of God’s kingdom. This came to be the understanding of these texts, particularly after Israel returned from their exile in Babylon. Having experienced the horror of the exile, the Jews had a new appreciation for obedience to the law. Furthermore, they thought their restoration was dependent on cleansing their world from all sin and evil. So prior to the coming kingdom, God would go on the ultimate fishing mission to gather evil and destroy wickedness.

With this background, it is easy to understand why the first disciples jumped when Jesus used this phrase to call them. The judgment was coming and they were being called as fishermen for God. Jesus had come to purify the nation from evil, and they would be co-anglers with him, catching evil and wiping Israel clean of sin prior to the kingdom of God being established in their midst.

Their fishing mission began with Jesus’s announcement, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The followers of Jesus heard this call as a warning to get life in order or be caught up in the fierce wrath of God. But Jesus upended their expectations. Something new happened. First, Jesus made this announcement to the Gentiles. These were the very ones God should have destroyed! Yet, rather than destroying, Jesus began to heal. Soon after calling the disciples, Mark’s gospel reports that Jesus healed a demoniac; in Matthew’s gospel, he healed “every disease and every infirmity among the people” and in Luke’s gospel, he healed a leper.(1) The old understanding of this mission kept all these people as unclean outsiders; these were the ones who needed to be gathered up in the nets of judgment and destroyed.

But Jesus rightly understood what the in-breaking of God’s kingdom entailed. Calling individuals to the mission of fishing was a sign of Jesus’s proclamation: “The time is now fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand.” Jesus went fishing as the sign of the in-breaking kingdom in his very person, and in his teaching ministry. And so it remains today. Rather than ridding the world of sinners and of evil, Jesus gathers these outsiders into the net of his fellowship where they are healed and transformed. Dallas Willard says it this way: “Jesus then came into Galilee announcing the good news from God. All the preliminaries have been taken care of and the rule of God is now accessible. Review your plans for living and base your life on this remarkable new opportunity.”(2)

It is into this same fishing mission that Jesus calls those who would follow him. His intention is not simply telling people what they need to turn away from, but showing them who they can turn toward. To be sure, turning to God requires an entire reorientation of our lives: we do need to repent, to turn around, and go in a kingdom-direction. In the presence of Jesus, there is now the option of living within the light of God’s kingdom purposes and finding our lives caught up into the kind of life we were always intended to live.

Often attempts at fishing for God’s kingdom might be just as bumbling and clumsy as my childhood attempts at casting. Sometimes they are only as good as our own understanding of what it means to be kingdom dwellers. As those who would seek to follow Jesus, we too are called to review our plans for living and base our life on this remarkable new opportunity. Jesus’s mission compels us beyond ourselves and towards others, reaching out to those on the margins, healing those who are sick, blessing those who are cursed, and combating evil with love and justice. We are invited to join Jesus in his ministry of reconciliation, gathering people up into the net of the kingdom and kingdom living.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

(1) Matthew 4:18-23, Mark 1:21-28, Luke 5:1-15.
(2) Dallas Willard, The Divine Conspiracy (San Francisco, Harper Books: 1998), 15.

Morning     “Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines.”   Song of Solomon 2:15

A little thorn may cause much suffering. A little cloud may hide the sun. Little

foxes spoil the vines; and little sins do mischief to the tender heart. These

little sins burrow in the soul, and make it so full of that which is hateful to

Christ, that he will hold no comfortable fellowship and communion with us. A

great sin cannot destroy a Christian, but a little sin can make him miserable.

Jesus will not walk with his people unless they drive out every known sin. He

says, “If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have

kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love.” Some Christians very

seldom enjoy their Saviour’s presence. How is this? Surely it must be an

affliction for a tender child to be separated from his father. Art thou a child

of God, and yet satisfied to go on without seeing thy Father’s face? What! thou

the spouse of Christ, and yet content without his company! Surely, thou hast

fallen into a sad state, for the chaste spouse of Christ mourns like a dove

without her mate, when he has left her. Ask, then, the question, what has driven

Christ from thee? He hides his face behind the wall of thy sins. That wall may

be built up of little pebbles, as easily as of great stones. The sea is made of

drops; the rocks are made of grains: and the sea which divides thee from Christ

may be filled with the drops of thy little sins; and the rock

which has well nigh wrecked thy barque, may have been made by the daily working

of the coral insects of thy little sins. If thou wouldst live with Christ, and

walk with Christ, and see Christ, and have fellowship with Christ, take heed of

“the little foxes that spoil the vines, for our vines have tender grapes.” Jesus

invites you to go with him and take them. He will surely, like Samson, take the

foxes at once and easily. Go with him to the hunting.

 

Evening   “That henceforth we should not serve sin.”   Romans 6:6

Christian, what hast thou to do with sin? Hath it not cost thee enough already?

Burnt child, wilt thou play with the fire? What! when thou hast already been

between the jaws of the lion, wilt thou step a second time into his den? Hast

thou not had enough of the old serpent? Did he not poison all thy veins once,

and wilt thou play upon the hole of the asp, and put thy hand upon the

cockatrice’s den a second time? Oh, be not so mad! so foolish! Did sin ever

yield thee real pleasure? Didst thou find solid satisfaction in it? If so, go

back to thine old drudgery, and wear the chain again, if it delight thee. But

inasmuch as sin did never give thee what it promised to bestow, but deluded thee

with lies, be not a second time snared by the old fowler–be free, and let the

remembrance of thy ancient bondage forbid thee to enter the net again! It is

contrary to the designs of eternal love, which all have an eye to thy purity and

holiness; therefore run not counter to the purposes of thy Lord. Another thought

should restrain thee from sin. Christians can never sin cheaply; they pay a

heavy price for iniquity. Transgression destroys peace of mind, obscures

fellowship with Jesus, hinders prayer, brings darkness over the soul; therefore

be not the serf and bondman of sin. There is yet a higher argument: each time

you “serve sin” you have “Crucified the Lord afresh, and put him to an

open shame.” Can you bear that thought? Oh! if you have fallen into any special

sin during this day, it may be my Master has sent this admonition this evening,

to bring you back before you have backslidden very far. Turn thee to Jesus anew;

he has not forgotten his love to thee; his grace is still the same. With weeping

and repentance, come thou to his footstool, and thou shalt be once more received

into his heart; thou shalt be set upon a rock again, and thy goings shall be

established.

 

Cursed before the Lord be the man who rises up and rebuilds this city, Jericho.  Joshua 6:26

If the man who rebuilt Jericho was cursed, how much more does the man who works to restore false religion among us deserve the same. In our fathers’ days the gigantic walls of false religion fell by the power of their faith, the perseverance of their efforts, and the blast of their gospel trumpets; and now there are some who would like to rebuild those false systems upon their old foundations.

Lord, we pray, be pleased to thwart these unrighteous endeavors, and pull down every stone that they build. It should be a serious business with us to be thoroughly purged of every error that tends to foster the spirit of falsehood, and when we have made a clean sweep at home we should seek in every way to oppose its all too rapid spread abroad in the church and in the world.

This we may accomplish only in secret by fervent prayer and in public by faithful witness. We must warn with judicious boldness those who are inclined toward the errors of false religion; we must instruct the young in gospel truth and tell them of the dark doings of falsehood in earlier times. We must assist in spreading the light more thoroughly through the land, for false teachers, like owls, hate daylight.

Are we doing all we can for Jesus and the Gospel? If not, our negligence plays into the hands of the heretics. What are we doing to spread the Bible, which is the antidote to falsehood? Are we sending out good, sound gospel writings? Luther once said, “The devil hates goose quills,” and, no doubt, he has good reason; the writer’s pen blessed by the Holy Spirit has damaged his evil kingdom greatly. If the thousands who read this short word tonight will do all they can to hinder the rebuilding of this accursed Jericho, the Lord’s glory shall spread quickly among the sons of men.

Reader, what can you do? What will you do?

The family reading plan for May 29, 2012

Isaiah 30 | Jude 1