Thursday, April 19, 2012

First Things First

     Not long after Jesus' death Peter and the disciples went fishing. This was the first time they had gone fishing since the day Jesus called them out of their boats and away from their nets to become fishers of men. Just like that day, they weren't catching a thing. To add to the irony, a man called out to them from the shore, "Catch anything? No, huh? Try lowering the nets on the other side." They did and pulled in more fish than the boat could hold. As they pulled the boat ashore they saw Jesus tending a fire. Before doing anything else Jesus made breakfast for His hungry disciples.

    He knew before He could fill them up with His spiritual message, He had to take care of their physical needs. Just like you have to repair a hole in the tire before you can fill it up, you need to repair the body before you can fill it with any spiritual message. When you see a person suffering from hunger, you can talk to him all day about God but until you feed him, he will never really respond to the message you are trying to deliver. We as Christians need to be careful not to look beyond the physical needs  as we deliver a message of hope.