Fishing for Men

In John 21 Peter decided to go fishing and the others said that they would go with him. After they had fished all night they had caught nothing. When the morning came and they looked over at the shore they saw that Jesus was there. This is the first indication that they were not in God’s will. Jesus was not in the boat with them!

Even worse, they didn’t even know that it was Jesus on the shore! They were so out of the spirit that they couldn’t tell that it was the very one that had been with them for three and a half years. John was the first one to realize that it was the Lord.

They had gone off on their own fishing for men that they thought would be good and had utterly failed. Why? They never asked the Lord if He were doing it. Obviously He was not. Without Him in the boat how could they succeed in the Lord’s work?

This story is a picture of our service to the Lord in fishing for men. Whatever we do without the Lord will be a failure. Only He can say to cast the net on the right side of the boat. When He leads He not only told them when to through the net but even on which side of the boat to through it. He will give the when and the where and all the details if we will spend the time with Him. We not only need Him to give the direction but we need Him in the boat with us. Then there will be success.

The disciples had not yet learned the lesson that the way to success in any venture that is for the benefit of the Kingdom of God is by the cross. All the self, the opinions and all the natural means and energy must go to the cross. Before there is life there must be death to self. Everything of self must be brought to the cross, pass through death into resurrection life. Then out of our innermost being will flow rivers of living water to supply people with what they need so badly: Christ who is our salvation.

If we would begin to do a work for God and we discover that there is no blessing and we don’t even realize that the Lord is not in what we are doing, we should stop, trace back our steps until we are with the Lord again. Then find out what He is doing and proceed remaining in Him We all make these kinds of errors and we learn more of our Lord. Then by His mercy begin to know more and more the way we should go on with Him.

God’s Way

1 Tim. 1:4 “…God’s economy, which is in faith”

God has His way. It is the only way in which God will work. If any man will work the work of God he must enter into God’s way. All other ways will eventually become corrupt and collapse. This is a principle that cannot be broken. No matter how much anyone tries to produce something by any means other than God’s way, eventually, the thing that is produced will not look like something of God. It will have the touch of man and that touch will kill. It is the touch of death.

You can see this in the Old Testament when David attempted to bring the Ark to Jerusalem on a cart drawn by oxen which was not the way revealed by God to carry the Ark. The revealed way was that the priests should carry it on their shoulders. So when the cart began to tip over and Uriah tried to keep the Ark from falling, he was slain. Man’s touch kills the move of God. Only in God’s way can the Ark be moved.

On the other hand, man has his ways. You can see this wherever you look in today’s Christian world. There are projects, teachings, programs, counseling, worldly music, mission trips, all kinds of meetings to build relationships, building programs, fund raising, home meetings, correct forms, all aimed to produce good things that man deems are for God. But anything other than God’s way is doomed to failure.

It is therefore imperative for us to find out what God’s way is and conform ourselves to it. To do otherwise is at the best foolish and at the worst rebellion toward God. If He has revealed His way who are we, fallen men, to attempt another way.

Paul says in 1 Timothy, “…charge certain persons not to teach differently, nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies, which promote speculations rather than an economy of God which is by faith.” (1:3-4)

The word “economy” (ojiconomiva) comes from two Greek words, house and law. It means the arrangement and management of a household. It means that it is God’s arrangement or way for His house, the Church.

The problem in the churches by the time 1 Timothy was written was that the churches had taken a different way. They were drifting into Gnostic teaching, hierarchy and legalism. They had fallen from God’s way and were becoming an outward religion instead of a living organism with Christ as the Head.

The same problem exists today. Not only have the churches fallen into all kinds of things other than God’s way, it seems that they don’t even know what God’s way is.

What then is God’s way? Although God’s way is clearly revealed in the Word, it takes revelation to see it. Revelation removes the natural religious veils from our eyes. Unless this happens, we may hear or read about God’s way, but continue on our old path.

Revelation came to Peter on the road to Caesarea Philippi. When Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do men say that I am?” Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God.” Jesus said that this was revelation. It was not something thought up by Peter, but it was revelation received by him from God.

We need the Word unveiled by our Father concerning His son Jesus Christ who is God’s way. Our assignment from God is to live and walk in God’s way. To put it another way, in his second epistle Peter says that we are to participate in the divine nature. The apostle Paul says it even another way. He says rejoice in the Lord and always rejoice. The writer of the book of Hebrews said we are to look away from everything else unto Jesus. Others have said that our participation in the Lord is simply to enjoy Him.

Jesus Christ is the sum of all spiritual things. He is the All. Eventually He will become all in all. Every spiritual blessing is received and experienced only through Him. We are to walk in spirit where Christ dwells in our inner being. All our focus is to be on Him. He is the beloved of the Father, and we are beloved by God in Him. Nothing is obtained from God outside of Christ, and we can do nothing apart from Him. (John 15:5)

We all need revelation to see that this wonderful Person is the center and circumference of God’s purpose. Obtaining Him is to receive the divine life. To gain more and more of Him is the process of transformation. Experiencing Him together with other saints is the way the church is built up. God approves of nothing outside of the realm of Christ.

Look at the way Paul writes his epistles. He always shows that everything God does and we receive is through Christ and in Christ. We are not to attempt to please God or work for God independently from Christ. Christ is our life and our living with the called-out ones.

Every morning we come to our dear Lord Jesus praying and reading His word. We participate in the divine nature through His precious promises. As we pray and read the Word, the divine life flows into our spirits and then out through our souls. This is the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ. (Phil. 1:19) Then out of that supply we are enabled to supply others with all they need: the very Person of our Lord Jesus Christ who is God’s way.

Meeting in the Lord

Our meeting this morning was with the Lord's presense. We sang several songs and pray-read form Ephesians 1:9-10. We touched the Lord in the Spirit with our spirits. Just like the Lord Jesus said to the woman at the well in Samaria in John 4, that the Father is seeking worshipers to worship in in spirit and in reality.

It is so interesting that when the Lord is flowing in the spirit you are filled and energized throughout the day and then He is able to flow out through you to touch others. It is not about you but totally about Him. He is the Christ, the annointed one to carry out God's economy. You and I are simply vessels of clay carrying about this wonderful treasure.

Pleasing God

The Lord of all, Jesus Christ, has been waiting and working for two thousand years for the reality of the church to appear. A church where the oneness of John 17 has become reality. This is an organic, life-oneness. Oneness where the Father is in the Son and the Son is in the Father and they are in us and we are in God and in one another. This is a oneness where our spirits join together and you could say that your sin is mine and mine is yours. We have literally been made members one of another.

This is the church where Christ actually is head of His body. He makes the decisions and rules in His kingdom. It is the place where the brothers live so much in Him and have been dealt with to the point where they keep their opinions, their reasonings and their choices on the cross and allow Christ to head them up.

It is a place where the members have left the world and sin behind them and where, if these things creep in, they are dealt with by the members if necessary. For where there is sin and the world there can be no moving of the Spirit. Undealt with sin blocks the free flow of the Spirit. The world makes us an enemy of God and an adulteress. This is one who has betrayed her future husband and is not fit to be the bride of Christ. How could the Lord flow if there would be such lazy and rebellious Christians who would not deal with offenses like this? Unless we Christians are willing to deal thoroughly with the world, sin and our self, we have no way to experience the church that the Lord desires.

The Lord desires a church where the Spirit is free to flow and direct as He wills. Where there is no forcing but only flowing based on the principle of the flowing myrrh in the Tabernacle in the wilderness. All the motion toward the Holy of Holies where God dwelt was by His dynamic flowing. Unless the trespass and sin offering was presented there could be no devotion offering. In our experience when all known sin is confessed and abandoned we joyously devote ourselves utterly to God. But otherwise we can only force a kind of half-hearted consecration. Everything of God is free flowing without any convincing, demanding or forcing.

Just like the river in Ezek. 37, once you reach the stage of swimming, the river carries you along. There is no effort in going along to God. It is all in the flow of the spirit. Our only responsibility is to confess the sin that the Lord reveals to us leave the world and receive the supply of the divine life contained in the Word. Then we cooperate together to live in that stream of God in our homes and in our meetings.

Wherever the stream goes we go. We drop all religious concepts and let the river of the Spirit have its way. This brings us under the throne of God and the Lamb and supplies us with the water and tree of life. It also provides the way for the people of the world to be healed of every negative thing. (Rev. 21)

A New Beginning

If we would consider the bottom line of our Christian experience, we would have to say that it is altogether related to our knowing Christ. He is the center and circumference of all God desires and all we experience. And that experience begins with the regeneration of our spirit.

John 3:6 says that the Spirit gives birth to our spirit. When that happens we are regenerated and have received the diving life. In addition to our natural life we now have another life deep within the depths of our being. We now have Christ as life in our spirit. We are born again.

We have not been simply given a ticket to heaven nor has our natural life been made everlasting. These are both natural concepts. What has happened is that we have been given another life which is actually Christ Himself as our life. (Col.3:4)

This life is totally different from our natural life. It likes and desires only the things of God. It abhors sin and the world. It has already overcome these things and defeated the devil. It doesn’t have to attain to victory over the flesh, self, sin and the devil. This life has already defeated all the above.

This means that we too do not need to get the victory. The victory has already been given to us in His life. “Thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.” (1 Cor. 15:57) We simply believe what the Bible tells us. We are already victorious.

Regeneration is altogether a matter of the divine life coming into us. When we receive that life we are saved. That life is the eternal life of God. It is not only everlasting but has the quality of eternity. Nothing can damage or hurt His life. It can even go through death and not be harmed. The more you attempt to kill it the more it will rise in resurrection for it is itself the resurrection life.

Death cannot hold the resurrection life,
The life of God eternal manifest;
‘Tis uncreated, indestructible,
‘Tis Christ Himself, unconquerable, expressed.*

This is the life that Jesus lived when on the earth. The more He was attacked and mocked, the more that life in Him lived in victory overcoming every obstacle. When we received Him and were born again, we received that same life. Now, if we remain and abide in that life we too overcome anything that presses us down, even death.

By receiving His life we enter the kingdom of God. That kingdom is one of life not of rules and regulations. From that moment God intends that we live not by right or wrong but by the life that He imparted into us when we believed in His Son, Jesus Christ. We become people of the life of God not people of religion.

* Hymns, # 639, The Stream Publishers, Los Angeles, CA