Receiving Jesus’ word

As the sun was rising, Jesus stood at the water’s edge, but the disciples did not know that it was Jesus. Then he asked them, ‘Young men, haven’t you caught anything?’

‘Not a thing,’ they answered.

He said to them, ‘Throw your net out on the right side of the boat, and you will catch some.’ So they threw the net out and could not pull it back in, because they had caught so many fish.
(verses 4-6)

Read John 21: 1-19

All people have times in their lives when they work hard and worry and struggle, all to no avail. No matter how much effort they put in, there seems to be no improvement in their relationships or no productivity in their work or no improvement in their character or behaviour.

Jesus’ disciples must have felt pretty despondent after spending a whole night fishing without catching a thing. They would have been tired and dirty and very frustrated. All their efforts to make a catch had been useless. But then, at Jesus’ word, they lowered their nets again, and they could not pull their nets back in for all the fish they had caught!

Your Lord gives you his word so that you may not spend your life working and worrying and struggling in vain. Your sins are forgiven. You have eternal life. You are God’s child. Receive his word, and he will give you what you could never have by your own effort. He will give you his light and love and life.

Jesus, thank you for giving me your promise of forgiveness, eternal life and peace with God. Please keep giving me your word, so that I may not work in vain but may receive everything I need from you. Amen.

by Fraser Pearce, in ‘Renewed Hope for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 2000)

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