Luke 5:6-9 – “And when they had done this, they caught a great number of fish, and their net was breaking. So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them. And they came and filled both the boats, so that they began to sink. When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord! For he and all who were with him were astonished at the catch of fish which they had taken..”
You might wonder why I called this devotion – FISHERS OF MEN. Actually I think it is the perfect name because that is what this miracle was all about. Peter, James, and John were fishermen. Their fathers and grandfathers before them had fished the Sea of Galilee for generations. That’s all they knew but that was all about to come to a sudden change. Jesus was overturning their apple cart, he was about to make fishers of men out of fishers of fish. The process was not what you would expect because in order for this kind of change to happen their hearts had to be changed. That’s exactly what happened that balmy morning on the shores of Galilee. Peter and the boys were about to have more than a career change, they were about to have a life change. How would that happen? It could only happen by a dramatic encounter with God. He convicts us of sin and brings us into a brand new life. Check out this quote from MacLaren’s Expositions on this passage.
“You remember the grand vision of Isaiah, how, when he saw the King sitting on His throne, ‘high and lifted up, and His train filled the Temple,’ the first thought was, not of rapture at the Apocalypse, not of adoration of the greatness, not of aspiration after the purity, not of any desire to join in the ‘Holy! Holy! Holy!’ of the burning spirits, but ‘Woe is me, for I am undone; for mine eyes have seen the King; for I am a man of unclean lips.’ Ah, brethren! whenever the commonplaces of our professed religious belief are turned into realities for us, and these things that we have all been familiar with from our childhood, flame before us as true and real, then there comes something analogous to the experience of that other Old Testament character—‘I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eyes see Thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.’”
Isaiah’s encounter sounds like Peter’s, “Depart from me for I am a sinful man” and for Isaiah it was “Woe is me for I am undone”. Isaiah’s repentance birthed one of the greatest of the Old Testament prophets and Peter’s repentance launched the apostolic ministry of Peter. So whenever the Lord wants to bring in a harvest He starts with repentance, maybe he wants to start with you. If the Lord comes down in your world maybe He has a new calling in mind for you. Don’t be surprised if all He says is “Go fish”.
