I caught you a delicious bass.
Do you like my title to this post, I took a line from the Napoleon Dynamite movie. I think it is going to be a classic line one day.Hunter and I finally had a chance to do some fishing this weekend. What a great day! It wasn't a great day because we caught the largest largemouth bass either of us have ever had an opportunity to put into a boat. It was a great day because we got to spend some "dad and son time" together. The bass was a bonus. Check out the picture. This Is a picture of the bass we caught. We did try to put it back, like we did all the rest of the fish we caught, but it expired before we could. I look at it like this, God has supplied us with dinner for an evening. Oh yeah, check out my shirt, it is one of my favorites.
Anyhow, as Hunter and I were fishing, we never knew what we were going to catch. We would sit and wait and wonder what would be next. Would it be a crappie? Would it be a bass? Would it be a catfish? We caught 16 fish that day and it was a mix of different fish. Yes, we caught crappie, (eleven to be exact) bass, (three of them, 2 over 5 pounds) and two catfish.
As I was sitting there waiting for the next fish to take his breakfast, watching Hunter as we both enjoyed the natural wonders God had created, I started thinking. In Matthew 4:18-19, Jesus saw Simon Peter and his brother Andrew fishing in the sea: for they were fishermen. Jesus said to them, "Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men." He didn't say follow Me and I will make you fishers of white men or black men, Jewish men, men of a certain country, background or race. He said I will make you fishers of men, ALL men.
I think the reason this came to mind was because our pastor asked if we had shared Jesus with anyone this week. This month? This year? It kind of hurt my feelings because I knew what I had done for my Lord this year. But then I thought about my blog and how many people actually read this thing.
I try to keep my blog fun, interesting and God honoring. I tell people how you can be a Christian and still have fun. But I have yet to tell people how to just be a Christian. So that's what I am going to do.
STEP ONE
Let me ask you a few questions.
1. Do you have any kind of spiritual belief?
2. To you, who is Jesus?
3. Do you believe there is a heaven and a hell?
4. If you died right now, where would you go? If heaven, why?
5. If what you believe were not true, would you want to know it?
STEP TWO
Let me show you what the Bible says about those questions.
1. Romans 3:23 - "All have sinned."
2. Romans 6:23 - "Wages of sin is death."
3. John 3:3 - "You must be born again." Why did Jesus come to die? He came to die to be a sacrifice for our sins.
4. John 14:6 - "I am the way."
5. Romans 10:9-11 - "If you confess...you will be saved."
6. 2 Corinthians 5:15 - " Those that live should no longer live for themselves."
7. Revelations 3:20 - "I stand at the door and knock."
STEP THREE
After reading what the Bible has to say, let me ask you a few more questions.
1. Are you a sinner?
2. Do you want forgiveness for your sins?
3. Do you believe Jesus died on the cross for you and rose again?
4. Are you willing to surrender your life to Christ? Are you ready to invite Jesus into your life and into your heart?
BE SILENT.... AND PRAY
Heavenly Father, I have sinned against You. I want forgiveness for all my sins. I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me and rose again. Father, I give You my life to do with as You wish. I want Jesus Christ to come into my life and into my heart. This I ask in Jesus' name. Amen
(Thanks to LifeWay Press and their book Share Jesus Without Fear.)
If anyone has said this prayer please let me know by leaving a comment. If any one has any questions, please feel free to also leave a comment. I will do my best to answer them. If I can't I have plenty of friends out there in the blogger world that can help us both. If you do not want to leave a comment but would like to talk to me in private, you can email me at hunter1224@yahoo.com.
Remember, don't tell God how big your storms are, tell your storms hoe big your God is.
God bless, Joe I caught you a delicious bass.
posted by JOE B @ 5:13 PM 13 comments 
13 Comments:
Praise God,
I am a regular visitor on your blog. I like your humour and simple faith. God uses people like you in many ways. May the Lord bless you richly. I added you as a link on my blog site.
Great post. Glad you and Hunter had a great time fishing, even more glad that you are sharing Jesus as a fellow fisher of men.
You've got quite a nice bass there. Sweet.
That's one big fish! Your children are blessed to have you as a dad.
Nice fish. I'm useless at fishing but I would like to reel in a few souls before heading home.
I'll be back to visit later.
Hello..just surfing through with BE...GBU
Shalom
Lissa
All I can say, and to also quote Napolean Dynamite,LUCKY! Great story, thanks for sharing it.
Man, you should have put the fish back in. What did it ever do to you? Would you like some vicious metal hook in your upper lip and then some even more vicious humans devouring you with fish knives at dinner? The way I see it, God is dead, the supermarket killed him.
Hey Joe.
Ignore the previous post.God's not dead...I think this Guy just got touched by God when reading your post, but doesn't want to admitt it. Some people fight it so hard
I liked your post Joe. We did that ‘Share Jesus without fear’ course at church a few years ago and it was good. I know that I don’t share Jesus enough with people, because I’m a big Frady Cat. But I find that on my Blog I hope that I’m a witness to people. Some of my non-christian friends read it, but I think I need to do more ‘sharing hope and God’s love’ on my blog, because We should shine God’s love. Sometimes I feel miserable and it reflects in my blog, but one thing that I should be offering more is that God can make things better and maybe stop winging. I don’t know….do you think that might be better? I like your blog….I get many laughs out of your pictures, but your blog is also serious sometimes which is nice.
God Bless You! And thank you for being one of my new Blog friends.
Hey everyone,
Thank you so much for all of your nice comments. I was a little scared to post this because I was afraid I would get comments like the one from anonymous. But you know what, I still love the guy or girl. I think you are right Kristi, I think they may have come under some conviction. Jimmy at Being God's and I spoke last night about that very thing. At least I hope they are under some sort of conviction, I am just going to pray for this person. I hope everyone will do the same. Thanks again to everyone,
God Bless, Joe
Great post, Joe. Of course, that line from my favorite movie of all time really caught my eye, but your message pulled me in.
I've come under fire a bit lately for having a blog (one woman told another she thought it was "stupid" for me to be blogging), but I've held it with a pretty open hand and every time I say, "Lord, do you still want me to blog--or do You want me to quit?" I get an email from someone who tells me they 've gotten closer to God because of something they read on my blog. So there you go.
You have a great ministry going on here. We love your posts ... and clearly you're causing some to think.
Thanks Shannon, that means a lot coming from you.
I learned that exact same evangelism process in my Sunday school class this past month. The story of the man who has shared that is amazing. He came from a life of crime and owned a prostitution house. Our amazing God changed his life and He will spend eternity with even a sinner such as him and me.
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