Life of Christ 37
Luke 5:5 And Simon answering said unto him, Master, we
have toiled all the night, and have taken nothing: nevertheless at thy word I
will let down the net.
Often, miracles happen
to hard working people.
Our God is a God of
character. For instance, He always keeps His Word, and He is completely
consistent in all of His actions. Character is important to Him. In His
dealings with us we also see that He often rewards character. For example, He
fed Israel in the Wilderness, raining manna down on them, but they still had to
go do the work of gathering it each morning if they didn't want to starve. The
book of Proverbs, alone, is filled with allusions to the rewards that come to
those who do the hard thing, who do the right thing simply because they are
supposed to do it.
In my humble opinion,
one of the greatly under-emphasized keys to the Christian life, as well as to
life period, is just to work hard. 'Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a
workman that needed not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth' (II
Timothy 2.15).
Here's what happens: We
work hard at some aspect of godly character we are seeking to incorporate in
our life, or some Christian grace that we are seeking to master. We work and we
work and we work and we work. Gradually, we come to realize that no matter how
hard we work we cannot fully internalize it or master it. In desperation, then,
we cast ourselves before the Lord and ask for His help, completely convinced
that it will not come any other way. He sees that we have given it everything
we have, and He sweetly makes up the difference. The result of this system is
that He gets the glory and we get the character. We don't earn it, beloved, no,
it is His grace – but He isn't in the business of developing lazy people.
Peter never would have
seen that miracle, let alone been reached by Christ, let alone become one of
the greatest men in the history of humanity, if he hadn't taken that boat back
out onto the Sea of Galilee even though he was already tired.
Do you need a miracle?
How hard are you working
at what He already told you to do?
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