Faith Will Change Your Life

Do you remember the day that you surrendered your life to Jesus and accepted him as Lord of your life? Can you remember how strong your faith was at that moment? Is your faith as strong now as it was then, or is it maybe even stronger?

The Bible defines faith as “the certainty of things hoped for, a proof of things not seen.” But it seems like the longer we go without seeing things that we hope for, the weaker our faith grows. God is with us today to show us and to encourage us to be strong in our faith because faith can change our lives. Prayer.

When I was a student at Texas tech University in Lubbock, Texas, I had a friend that had a huge aquarium in his living room and it was stocked with piranha. He would take little pieces of ground meat and drop in the tank and the fish went wild. I always thought it wouldn't be very hard to bait a hook and catch one of those.

When I thought of that, I thought, I wish faith was as easy as fishing for piranhas. Sometimes faith can seem as elusive as fishing on a bad day. As long as we're catching, we're excited. But when we go for a long period of time without even a nibble, it gets kind of boring. Our faith can be like that. Sometimes we feel fragile and inadequate as followers of Jesus. But the good news is that God has given us more than one example in Scripture of life-changing faith.

I'm going to begin today in the Gospel of Luke 5. Luke is the longest book in the New Testament. It's believed that Luke wrote both the book of Luke and the book of Acts. Both of these books are quite long. But Luke's goal was to give readers confidence in their faith. Faith is more than just positive thinking. God wants a personal relationship with us and is constantly trying to change our hearts. Jesus invites us to live a life of faith that's beyond our current situation.

Luke 5:1-3 – “As the crowd was pressing in on Jesus to hear God’s word, he was standing by Lake Gennesaret. 2 He saw two boats at the edge of the lake; the fishermen had left them and were washing their nets. 3 He got into one of the boats, which belonged to Simon, and asked him to put out a little from the land. Then he sat down and was teaching the crowds from the boat.”

Jesus was standing on the shoreline teaching and the crowds became larger and larger and began pressing in on him. So, Jesus got into Peter's boat to teach the crowd that had gathered to hear Him speak. We might ask, “Did Peter even know Jesus? Simon Peter had experienced Jesus's power when Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law. Peter heard from his brother, Andrew, that Jesus was the promised Messiah. Despite what Peter had seen and heard, he hadn't responded in faith and become a follower of Jesus. Not yet anyway.

Now Peter had a front row seat to listen to Jesus as He preached. Peter was already a religious and observant Jew. As he listened to Jesus teach, he heard about living by faith instead of religious observance and rituals. He then began to understand that Jesus wanted Peter to trust Him. Jesus was calling Peter out of religion and into a relationship founded on faith.

I wonder sometimes if we come to church more as an obligation to religion instead of a relationship with Jesus. I think that is common in churches around the world. People can get so caught up in religion that they don't even realize that they even come close to having a relationship with Jesus. But isn't that relationship with Jesus what is most important?

Luke 5:4-7 – “When he had finished speaking, he said to Simon, “Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.”5 “Master,” Simon replied, “we’ve worked hard all night long and caught nothing. But if you say so, I’ll let down the nets.”

6 When they did this, they caught a great number of fish, and their nets began to tear. 7 So they signaled to their partners in the other boat to come and help them; they came and filled both boats so full that they began to sink.”

Jesus tells Peter to let down his nets into the water. bYou might notice that Peter was a little hesitant because they had worked all night and had caught nothing. It seemed like a waste of time to go out and try again just because Jesus asked him to do it. He could have denied Jesus's request. After all, what does a carpenter from Nazareth know about fishing? And yet, Peter obeyed Jesus, and the nets filled to the brim with fish.