Truth Is to Be Experienced

“When He had finished speaking, He said to Simon, ‘Put out into deep water and let down your nets for a catch.’” (Luke 5:4)

When Christ teaches you something about Himself, He imple­ments it into your life through experience. As the crowds gathered around, Jesus chose to board Peter’s boat and teach the people from there. All day long Peter sat in the boat listening to Jesus teach the multitudes. At the close of His discourse, Jesus allowed Peter to experience the reality of what He had just been teaching the crowd. The crowd had heard the truth, but Peter was to experience it.

Jesus put His teaching into language a fisherman could under­stand. He told Peter to put out his nets into the deep water. Peter hesitated, “Master, we have toiled all night and caught nothing.” Peter had been fishing all night, had washed and repaired his nets in the morning, and then listened to Jesus teach. He was tired. He probably was not expecting a dramatic encounter with God at a time like that. Yet, as Peter obeyed Jesus, he pulled in such a miraculous catch of fish that his boat almost sank! Peter was filled with amazement and recognized that he had just experi­enced the power of God (Luke 5:4-11).

Peter learned that with a command from Jesus, he could do anything. Thus, Jesus was able to reorder Peter’s priorities from catching fish to catching men (Luke 4:10). Peter’s obedience led to a dramatic new insight into the person of Jesus. This was an invitation to walk with Jesus in an even more intimate and power­ful way.

God does not want you to merely gain intellectual knowledge of truth. He wants you to experience His truth. There are things about Jesus you will learn only as you obey Him. Your obedi­ence will then lead to greater revelation and opportunities for service.

HB.RB.