Fishers of Men

It is written in Matthew 4:19, “Jesus said, Come, Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men.“

This is one of the most favorite verse of Evangelists and Pastors. It reminds them of their calling about sharing the gospel and making disciples of all nations. In fact, they loved preaching this on churches to honestly tell people about God’s purpose for each of our lives. We may be living just an ordinary worker in the church (not having leadership titles), but biblically speaking, we are all called to share the gospel. We are to be FISHERS OF MEN!

I take this Word personally and this is my one of the verses that motivates me to serve God. So just like any other matured christian, I started conducting some cell groups to fulfill the Word of God. I shared the gospel and I talked about my personal testimonies and I also invited some other youth leaders to share in the cell group I’m handling. So its been around 3 months that I’ve been sharing to the group. What I did is that I analyzed their lives before, and their lives now just for me to know if this is doing any good for them. I was a bit discouraged knowing that some of them seems to be living the same lives, nothing much changed.

I was confused and I tried asking myself:

Am I not effective?
Does this mean I am not spiritual?
Is the Holy Spirit with me when I minister?
Am I being self righteous?
Am I not sensitive on God’s leading?
Many more….

In a very unexpected situation, God comforted me and gave me some encouraging words.

1.) First of all, we are called to be fishers of men. But the bible did not say that we will catch a lot!

God called us to share the gospel. However, as far as I know, the bible did not promise that all people will listen to us. In fact, in Matthew 7:24-27, the bible tell us about a Wise and a Foolish Builder. This simply means that we don’t have any control to how our listeners respond. If we share the gospel and they put everything they’ve learned into practice, then probably they are what the bible says a Wise Builder. Unfortunately, most people are Foolish Builders.

We should not be discourage even if most people neglect us. Our life must go on, so is our purpose fulfilled! Let’s be focused on those who listens, even though they are few, still God is pleased and the Heavens rejoices because of them..

2.) We share, God minister!

We are humans definitely far from being a god. Our main purpose is to share the gospel. To comfort those who mourn.  To give encouragement to the broken hearted. To proclaim freedom for the captives. To show gladness to those who mourn. To express the love of God. It is not us who change people. No matter how good we share the gospel, it is God who ministers. We cannot change their lifestyles nor make their lives better.

If we share and they don’t change, it doesn’t make us unworthy. As long as we do our jobs, God is pleased! But let me tell you that as we share His word, we obviously need to lay down the foundation of prayer. We can’t change them however we can intercede for them. That is all we can do to help.

I started changing my perspective regarding my service for God. Though I pursue excellence whenever I share His word, I continuously tell myself that it is God who ministers on their lives. We may not see direct changes but still we our assured that God is doing something far more than what we can imagine.

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