Go Deeper
May 17, 2021 1986
Simon was a professional fisherman. It was his business to know where the fish were. Despite that, he and his friends had been working hard, fishing all night, but they had caught nothing. Simon was disappointed, but he just put it down to the luck of fishing. You can read the story in Luke 5:1-11.
Since it was now day, and they were washing their nets, a travelling teacher asked if he could sit in the boat and teach from there, so that the people could see and hear him better. The boat wasn’t being used for anything anymore, so Simon agreed.
When the teacher, called Jesus, had finished, he told Simon to go out into deeper water, and to let the net down for a catch. For Simon, the professional fisherman, this was ridiculous. It was the both the wrong time and the wrong place to fish. Simon protested a little, and then he thought, “Why not? And he takes a chance on Jesus.
When Simon had taken his boat out to deeper water and let down his nets, the story tells us that,
When they had done so, they caught such a large number of fish that their nets began to break (v.6, NIV).
Jesus went in deep for you. How deep are you prepared to go for him?
It turns out that Jesus knew more about fishing than Simon. In fact, he knew more about everything than Simon. In the same way, Jesus knows more about everything than we do, even about the stuff that we think we’re experts at! And it there’s one thing that every one of us think that we’re experts at, it’s running our own lives, isn’t it?
It’s because of that that we miss out on the blessings that God wants to give us. We paddle around in the shallows of life, when all the time Jesus wants us to go deeper. That’s where the fish are. That’s where we find the happiness and fulfillment.
Instead of opening ourselves up to relationships and immersing ourselves in the wonder of life, we just dip our toes in, thinking that that’s what we’re meant to do. In fact, that’s what we’ve been taught, and what we’ve taught ourselves to do, because that keeps us safe from whatever may be out there in the deeper waters. But Jesus says, “Go deeper… experience more deeply, share more deeply, love more deeply.”
But the lesson here is even deeper. Jesus wants us to go deeper in our relationship with him. Simon the fisherman became Peter the disciple, and he eventually came to understand this.
Don’t be afraid to go deeper.
In the upper room, when Jesus knelt before Peter to wash his feet, Peter exclaimed, “Don’t just wash my feet! Wash all of me!” (Paraphrased, John 13:9).
Jesus claims all of us. He doesn’t just want us to paddle with our feet in the shallows of his grace. Instead he wants us to immerse ourselves fully in his love for us. He says to us, like he said to Simon, “Go deeper!” Because that’s where the greatest blessings are.
Jesus said to Simon that day on the boat, “Don’t be afraid” (v.10). Don’t be afraid to go deeper.
How deep did Simon go? He left everything and followed Jesus (v.11).
If you think about Calvary, then you’ll realise that Jesus went in deep for you. How deep are you prepared to go for him?
JASON ANDREW TOPPIN
May 23, 2021
JESUS KNOWS MY HEART