Go by faith and reap the rewards

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Verse of the Day

"Master," Simon replied, "we worked hard all last night and didn't catch a thing. But if you say so, I'll let the nets down again." - Luke 5:5 NLT

Devotion

Jesus was preaching to a great crowd on the shores of the Sea of Galilee. The crowd pressed against Him so much that He stepped into one of two boats He saw at the water's edge. The boat was owned by Simon. He asked Simon to push the boat further out into the water and He preached to the crowd from there.

When he had finished preaching, He told Simon, "Now go out where it is deeper, and let down your nets to catch some fish." (Luke 5:4) It was then that Simon spoke the words of our verse for today. As a result of his obedience to Jesus' words, the Bible says, "this time their nets were so full of fish they began to tear! A shout for help brought their partners in the other boat, and soon both boats were filled with fish and on the verge of sinking." (Luke 5:6-7)

Like Simon and his partners, you've been working too. You've been working hard at doing all the things you believe the Lord wants you to do. You've put to use all the talents, education, and resources you have in order to fulfill the call. Further, you're no novice. You been doing this for a while. As a result, you have certain ideas on how things should go. They've worked for you in the past and you have no reason to believe they won't work for you in the future.

Nevertheless, things have come to a bit of a standstill. What worked before doesn't seem to be working as well anymore. In point of fact, things seem to be getting a bit stale. It's at this point that the word of the Lord comes to you and tells you to do something different, something that may even seem a bit odd. You never did it that way before. Indeed, you have reasons why you never did it that way before.

Now, however, you have a choice. You can ignore the word that came to you, or you can obey the word even though it doesn't make much sense to you. In other words, you can go by faith in the word of the Lord, or you can go by your own understanding of things.

Like Simon, go by faith and reap the rewards. (Proverbs 3:5-6)

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