Thursday, September 12, 2013

The Challenge of Consecration without Isolation.

Chapter two in Love Like Jesus by Judah Smith revolves around Luke 5. It's all about the disciples washing their fishing nets. Part of the moral of this particular story is supposed to remind us that cleaning out nets means we use them to fish. We don't just clean them to keep them clean.

In this story, Jesus was preaching at a lake and because the crowd was moving in on him, he got out into a boat to preach from the water. He looked for Peter, who was washing his nets and got him to put his boat back into the water so He could continue to preach. When he was done, Jesus asked Peter to go fishing - after fishing all night and not catching anything, Peter let down his clean nets and caught tons of fish. He immediately declared himself a sinner and Jesus as Lord.

"...[J]ust as the purpose of clean nets is to catch fish, so too the purpose of our purity is to reach people."

We need to maintain purity. It's so easy to get comfortable with our nice, shiny, and clean nets and lose touch with the sea. Then Judah breaks it down like this: We get saved, God forgives us our sins, and washes us clean with His Word. We feel so clean and happy that we want to spend all our time with other followers and forget about the other sinners still waiting for their chance to be saved.

"It is easy to forget that we were pulled out of a pit so that we would help others out of the same desperate situation." 

Proverbs 18:1 says 'A man who isolates himself seeks his own desire.' We tend to isolate ourselves because that's where we are comfortable and it's hard and risky to leave that comfort zone and reach out. God sets up apart not so that we stay isolated, but so that we will have strong and healthy nets and resources to help pull other people from the depths of their sins.

My Prayer: Lord, please forgive me for isolating myself. I'm so thankful that you've saved me from my sins and from the depths of them. Please cleanse my life so that I may be a person worthy of reaching other people in Your name. Amen.

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