DEEPER

DEEPER

Luke 5:4 ¶ When He had stopped speaking, He said to Simon, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.”

IN THE BEGINNING OF 1999, The Lord spoke to me from today’s verse of scripture. I had no idea of the implications of this word from The Lord. For Peter, he was about to experience the greatest haul of fish that he had ever seen, on a day when no one could catch a fish. Three years later, Peter would become another kind of fisherman. He would be used to harvest thousands of souls to Christ as the church was being birthed. Peter had launched out into the deep, he was dragging in his nets full of fish. For me, I was caught by surprise in 1999 by a youth production called Beyond the Grave. Earlier that year, Columbine shocked the nation. Beyond the Grave was intended to be a Halloween youth production, based loosely on the events that happened at Columbine. We wrote the script, got together a cast, a scheduled two nights to perform Beyond the Grave. Fourteen years later, BTG is still being performed. Over 65,000 decision books have be given out at the altar calls. I feel like Peter must have felt, standing there looking at the haul of fish, knowing you had nothing to do with what just happened.
Launch out into the deep. The Lord is calling out to each of His sons and daughters to leave the shallows of their Christian faith and launch out into the depths of Biblical Christianity. Thinking back upon 1999, I am struck by the words “Launch out into the deep”. Our church had been experiencing five years of outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Our hunger for The Lord and for His word had drawn us out in the deep. We were experiencing the depths of God and the overflow resulted in the harvest of souls at BTG. This is exactly what Jesus meant when He said, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”
Our bellies had been filled in the depths of God, the overflow was the harvest. What kind of deep places is God calling you into? Is He calling you to prayer and worship? Is He calling you to a new commitment to the depths of His word? Is He calling you to a new kind of separation? The answer to all of these questions is probably yes.
You may see that there is no way for you to see any kind of harvest in your life. That is exactly the place Peter was at, that’s exactly the place The Lord wants us to be in order for Him to show His glory. There is a deeper life available to all of us. As we yield and follow Christ out into the depths, we may feel silly but a supernatural catch is on the way.