Luke 5: 1-8 -- Ignoring ourselves brings success...
...when following God's instructions.
These were professional fishermen who had been fishing all night, without success and were cleaning their nets.
Their knowledge could have given Christ a negative answer -- they knew from their own experience that fish were not available for catching. They had been experiencing this all night long. Why should they believe this man?
Their weariness could have given Christ a negative answer -- they had worked, tried hard, failed, and needed rest. Why not try again after some sleep?
Yet Simon Peter answered "… at thy word I will let down the net."
The result filled two ships.
Wow, can you imagine how joyful they would have been if that had happened while they were working the night before?
But now, it imparted knowledge and fear. Peter fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me: for I am a sinful man, O Lord. For he was astonished.
Are we? Not hardly. We take Christ's miracles for granted. "Hey, He's the Son of God -- of course He did miracles! How else would they know He was?" Well, how do we know? Can we find Him without seeing the miracles He gave His disciples? Do you realize how much more faith we must have than those disciples who got to see him? How wonderful!!
But the point I want to study here is how we must ignore knowledge, our wisdom, our own experience. What we know is so limited in comparison to His knowledge. And, we must ignore our weariness, no matter how tired we've become of attempting to do our work, no matter our failure. If we have not seen the results of our witnessing for Christ, we must be able to follow Peter's example and respond to God's call with the commitment "At thy word, I will..."
To hear His call, we must stay within His presence -- prayer and Bible study keeps us constantly in our Lord's presence. How else can we hear His word and respond to His will?
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