Lu:5:1: And it came to pass, that, as the people pressed upon him to hear theword of God, he stood by the lake of Gennesaret,
Lu:5:2: And saw two ships standing by the lake: but the fishermen were gone out of them, and were washing their nets.
Lu:5:3: And he entered into one of the ships, which was Simon's, and prayed him that he would thrust out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the people out of the ship.
Lu:5:4: Now when he had left speaking, he said unto Simon, Launch out into the deep, and let down your nets for a draught.
Lu: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.
The other morning during devotions, the Lord quickened me to look up the subject of "the elect", and I ran the references and was greatly stirred by God in the reading of the Word on this matter, but it was in the course of my reading through the book of Luke that I was arrested by this scripture, and saw something so clearly regarding the "elect" in a passage of scripture where the word is not used even once.
Jesus had a following of people ever eager to hear the words which he spoke. Indeed, "never a man spake like this man", and the people actually pressed to hear His words as he stood by the Lake Gennesaret. According to Easton's Bible Dictionary, the word "Gennesaret" means a "garden of riches". It was considered the Paradise of Galilee. Sometimes when a true statesman in the word brings forth the treasures from the logos , it indeed seems like a "garden of riches". I think of some of the great men of God in this country I've been privileged to hear preach the word.....men of great stature who would fall on their faces before the Lord Jesus if they could have been in such a situation as to be able to press upon Him to hear the word at His mouth.
And yet these are not the ones who captured the Lord's attention. It was not those ones who pressed upon Him to hear Him amaze and astonish them with his knowledge of the Logos (the logic of God) , and His ability to rightly divide the word of truth. It was not those who came to oooh and aaah at the banquet table spread before them full of the lucious fruits fresh from the ripening and plump vines, orchards and hillsides of the well-tended garden of diligent study and attention to the preparation of the pure truth of God's Holy Writ.
Rather it was two ships standing in the sea whose fisherman had departed in order to wash their nets.
The Lord Jesus Christ, God Incarnate, God manifested-in-the-flesh, Jesus......VERY GOD, and VERY MAN made a choice. He eyed those two ships, and then He ELECTED to get into one of those ships.
They were both fishing in the same waters. They were both full of fisherman. They were both exited by the fisherman who were intent to clean their nets. But then Jesus CHOSE one of those ships.
Oh what a blessing it is to know that your ship has been chosen by God. It's not because your ship is better than the other ship. It's not because you seek God more, or are more spiritual, or more deserving, but it's because you were chosen and elected by God from the foundation of the world that you might be one to be conformed to His image. Jesus never did anything apart from the voice of God the Father. He got into that particular ship He chose because His Father told him to do it. There was something in that ship that encouraged the attention of God Almighty, and the Lord sought that particular vessel for the place of His abiding at that time, and it was out of that place of His choosing that He continued to minister to those multitudes on the seashore.
When God gets into your boat, it's so He can use you to minister to the multitudes, but yet again His attention is only partly on the multitude. His focus is on that one in the ship He knows the Father has chosen, and elected for His divine favor and purpose.
What a blessed thing it is to be pursued by God!! Many are seeking the Lord in this hour, waiting for a visitation, waiting for miracles, signs, and wonders, waiting for a mantle to fall upon them, actively seeking God with all passion as never before in their lives. But there are the beloved of God in the earth whom the Lord seeks as eagerly, as ardently and as passionately as some are seeking for God. If you lie awake at night wondering at the great mercy of God in your life.......If you encounter those times when God's presence suddenly fills the place where you are when you know you've done nothing to deserve it.....If you have the Lord wake you up in the midnight hour to seek Him when you went to bed without a spiritual thought or notion anywhere in your mind......you can consider yourself to be among those who God pursues........God seeks out. If God takes the initiative for romancing and wooing you as a bridegroom rejoices over a bride, then God has no doubt chosen your ship.
You may be one feeling like you are ever pursuing fulfillment in some form of acceptance from another, only to have it escape you again and again. But if you, at times, feel suddenly wrapped in that blanket of God's warmth and love and holy affection towards you, then you are accepted in the Beloved, and pursued by God and CHOSEN and ELECT and PRECIOUS unto Him, and there is nothing that will ever satisfy your soul, or meet the hunger in your heart like those rich times in His Presence, and you need not to seek for another, but learn to bask in the glory of those times, and set your attention toward Him to entreat Him to STAY with you even as He was constrained by the two men along the Emmaus Road. (Luke 24)
After the Lord chose that ship and continued to preach the word, another very dramatic event took place.
Unto the multitudes He spoke the "logos", the logic of God. But unto those in the ship, the rhema word of the Lord came forth. It was a hard word of the Lord, but it was an active, and living, and "to the situation" word of the Lord that came forth. He told them to "launch out into the deep." My friend, Jesus will NEVER tell you to "launch out into the deep" if He is not right there in the boat with you!!!
Peter resisted a bit by re-iterating the circumstances. They had toiled all night, and had taken nothing.
And yet his final confession was, "Nevertheless at thy word......" Because it was the 'rhema word of the Lord", Peter found the strength and faith to obey God. You know the rest of the story. They filled their boat with fish, and needed to have the men from the other boat come and help them to handle the catch.
When Jesus chooses you, when you are the elect of God, chosen and precious, when God marks you as His beloved there will be some things required of you that are not required of the multitudes along the seashores who are eager to buy all the tapes, books, cd's and videos on sale. There will be something more required of you than attending all the prophetic and intercessory and mission-minded conferences.
You'll never be required by God to keep in your conscious memory the coffers full of the treasures of
His Word (Logos) that emerge from all these things. But when God chooses you, and elects you, and calls you precious, you will be required to hear a word from God,and act upon it for your very sustenance, your very living !!
The price you pay for getting the very significant attention of God in your life is that you can no longer be part of the multitudes, but that direct focus of God puts you in that face to face communion with Him where He is not preaching AT you, He is not talking AT you, but He is talking directly TO you, and He is addressing the issues that pertain to your life, and there is a true spiritual conversation taking place that has not to do with the abundance of the knowledge of God about all things in the universe, but it has to do with only TWO........YOU and GOD!! He is not only talking TO you, but more importantly, He is talking WITH you!!
Peter had the relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ where he could very frankly give God his opinion
before obeying the Lord's instruction. It was not rebellion, and it was not disrespect. It was the kind of closeness which genders honesty and the ability to probe further when there's an honest question in mind. The chosen and elect of God are not a bunch of mindless "yes" people who are terrorized into some form of submission. They are the ones who intimately know the Lord as well as a husband knows a wife, or a wife knows a husband who can freely dialogue with God their way into understanding His instructions and His reasoning behind all He says to do. When God tells you to "launch out into the deep", you can basically say whatever you want to Him to get to the place of true and pure revelation into what He is purposing to do in your life.
There are "awesome wonders in the deep", and for that one called and chosen and elected by God to "launch out" in this hour , there needs to be a relationship with the Lord based on the reality that you KNOW that you KNOW where you stand with Him beyond any question because there will be others in the other ship, the ship that Jesus did NOT get into who are full of presumption expecting to have the same results and the same word when the Lord never entered into what they are doing. A ship is the vehicle, and it can carrying the purposes of God that He is really and truly IN. Or it can carry your own desires that have nothing to do with Jesus. So much going on in this world that the Lord Jesus Christ is NOT IN IT!!!
My friend, make sure Jesus is REALLY IN YOUR SHIP before you launch out into the deep waters!!
I am personally seeking the Lord on this matter as never in my life. I'm aware that every vision, every desire, every relationship not truly wrought in God, not truly full of the Holy Ghost, not truly filled with the presence and reality of Jesus Christ had better just STAY IN THE SHALLOWS because if we try to go out into the deep without Jesus in the ship, we are headed for disaster.
Many think they have God with them in what they are doing, and they are headed for spiritual shipwreck. Many have called and chosen themselves and never even waited to give God a chance to get into their boat. Many have given themselves titles, and called themselves apostles and prophets of their owm ambition and volition, and heaped to themselves the comraderie of little more than silly women and itching ears and those who are ever learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Running after every new thing that comes along is their way of life, and they live in a state of anxiety over the latest fads and trends in revelation. They don't know the peace of God. They don't know the true conviction of the Holy Ghost. They don't know the real and true and living Jesus Christ.
They know only a "form of godliness" that sweeps their soul with the currents of religious tide right into the very deep waters of disatisfaction that someone else out there yet has something "spiritually" more desirous that must be pursued, and the cycle is endless. They don't know the deep waters of the miraculous deliverance and provision of God like Peter and those in his ship did. They have nothing to truly share with others.
In the kingdom of God, the sea-scented air is pure of the smoke stacks of man's own industriousness, and the aroma tends to the recognition of the simplicity of a word from God heard by the saints of God, and then acted upon unto the outworking of it's fulfillment. This is the sweet and simple truth and way of the "ELECT". Jesus is in your ship. He is telling you to launch out into the deep, and you can do it because He is truly with you. One little command, one little obedience, and one great big blessing.
Oh to be in that same ship Jesus decides to get INTO!!!!
Always in the Love of Jesus,
Clo DiPilato
Comments