Advent Devotional – 12.3.2021
Bob Humphrey
Luke 5:2 – “He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets.”
Author and Pastor John MacArthur once wrote, “There are no careless or wasted words in Scripture. Under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, human authors recorded with perfect precision the exact message God intended to deliver to His church.”
It is in that spirit we read Luke 5:1-11, specifically Luke 5:2 where scripture says, “He saw at the water’s edge two boats, left there by the fishermen, who were washing their nets.”
As we know, those fishermen are recruited by Jesus to become fishers of men. And we know that often in scripture, fishing is used as an analogy for evangelizing. So why does scripture, which has no wasted words, mention in detail the net cleaning activities the men were performing?
When using nets, it is common to pick up seaweed, mud, and dead fish from the bottom of the lake. The debris will rot and stink in the boat if not cleaned out of the nets after each use. The debris in the nets will make them visible to fish as the nets glide through the water, allowing them to evade the nets. Eventually the rot will damage the nets, making them useless for catching fish.
As we are charged to bring people to Jesus in our daily lives, what is the debris in our nets as we enter this season of Advent? Greed? Jealousy? Lust? If our unrepentant sin is caught in our nets, stinking and rotting, how likely are we to ‘catch’ others and bring them to Christ?
Dear Heavenly Father, we lay before you our sins, and ask for your forgiveness so that we may do your work in this world with clean hearts, and clean nets. Amen.