FBC Daily Devotional – November 3, 2021

Well, good morning, good Wednesday morning to you. I trust your week is going well. Today, we're in John chapter 21 and mostly

I want to focus on Peter. That's easy to do in the gospel records. You know, if you're not focusing on Jesus, you can focus on Peter.

Jesus, of course, is the focal point, but Peter plays significant roles in the gospel accounts.

And here in John 21, he's a central figure as well. And what struck me as I read this, especially the first part of chapter 21, is the is the effect of failure on Peter's part.

There are two key places where Peter failed in his area of specialty, in his area of expertise.

And they begin, and those two occurrences of failure kind of bookend the gospel account of Peter.

So the first expression of failure, first experience of failure, was he was out fishing, caught nothing.

Fished all night, caught nothing. And the next morning, you know,

Jesus said, cast your nets on the other side, cast nets on the other side.

Nets were so full that they had to call help to come and and get those nets full of fish on board.

And the ship almost, the boat almost sank because it was so full of fish. And the result, here's the thing, the result of that failure is that Peter became a committed disciple of Jesus, followed him from that point on.

Well now, it's post -resurrection. Peter had earlier failed regarding the denial of Jesus.

But here they are, the resurrection has occurred, and you know, Jesus and half of the other disciples are there, they're on the seashore.

And Peter says, I'm going fishing. And the other disciples, okay, we'll go fishing with you.

And so off they go in a boat to go fishing. And again, you know, they fished, fished, fished, fished, cast their nets, threw their nets, and caught absolutely nothing.

Got nowhere. And then that morning, next morning, the resurrected

Jesus is on the seashore, and he tells them from the shore, cast your nets again over on this side of the boat.

And they did, and again, the nets were filled with fish. And John recognized that has to be

Jesus. He says, that's Jesus. And Peter, as soon as he heard it was Jesus, he dove into the water and he took off to get to Jesus as quickly as possible.

Brought the fish ashore, and so on and so forth. And here's the thing about this failure, of fishing failure.

After this failure, it led to the rededication and commissioning of Peter as a shepherd, an under shepherd of Jesus.

Jesus, remember, confronted him those three times, corresponding to the three denials, three times.

Peter, do you love me? Yes, feed my sheep. Peter, do you love me? Yes, feed my lambs. Peter, do you love me?

Yes, feed my sheep. So, he failed. First fishing failure resulted in becoming a committed disciple of Jesus.

Now, he's defeated. Here in John 21, he's feeling defeated, feeling like, you know, he let

Jesus down, and he did, he denied him. But Jesus comes to him in grace and mercy, confronts him.

After performing this miracle for him, he knows Jesus hasn't given up on him, and you know,

Peter re -establishes his commitment to be a follower of Jesus, and Jesus commissions him as a shepherd of Jesus' sheep.

One thing I take from that is to not be so quick to think of failure as complete failure.

What does Jesus want to do with me in my failure?

What redirection, what refocus, what reorientation is he wanting to accomplish in my failure?

Certainly, a very important line of thinking to consider when

I think, or maybe I actually have, failed in some key area of my life.

The other thing about Peter in this passage, I want to think about, want to focus on, is how after receiving that commission, he sees

John, and he says, you know, well, what about him? What's going to happen with him? Jesus responds to Peter and says, hey, if I want him to live till I come again, what is that to you?

You just do what I tell you to do. You follow me. You just follow me. And from this,

I'm also challenged about our innate tendency to compare ourselves with others, to think about, okay,

I think this is what God's got me to do, but what about him? You know, what's he supposed to do?

And Jesus' message to us is, don't worry about him or her. You follow me.

You focus on me. You focus on following my steps for your life, and I will take care of my other followers, my other servants.

You focus on following me. So I accept that challenge, and I realize that it doesn't matter what your vocation is, whether it's vocational ministry, or, you know, in the business world, or a homemaker, or what?

It doesn't matter what your calling in life is. There can be a tendency to look with a bit of envy or a comparison with others and wonder, well, you know, why are they gonna do what they're gonna do, you know?

Why can't I be like them? Why can't I do what they're gonna do? And so forth. No, we don't want to go there. When what we want to do is just be sure that we are following our

Savior step by step and be concerned about what he would have me to do.

That's the focus. Follow him. All right, Father, I pray that from these examples of Peter, we would learn some things today.

We need to keep our eyes focused on Jesus. We need to be committed to him, and if we have failed him, we need to recommit ourselves to him.

We need to be determined to do what he would have us to do. Help us to be faithful in that discipleship, we pray.

And we ask it in Jesus' name and for his sake. Amen. All right.