Monday, April 15, 2013

Instruction from God does not fail

Pam Padgett ... teacher

John 21:2 There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of his disciples. 3 Simon Peter saith unto them, I go a fishing. They say unto him, We also go with thee. They went forth, and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing. 4 But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore: but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus. 5 Then Jesus saith unto them, Children, have ye any meat? They answered him, No. 6 And he said unto them, Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and ye shall find. They cast therefore, and now they were not able to draw it for the multitude of fishes.

Although they had been fishing all night, Peter and the others with him caught nothing.  Then Jesus spoke to them and told them what to do.  When they did as Jesus instructed, they caught a multitude of fish. 

Then Jesus told them to bring the fish they had caught, and Peter drew the net to land.  Although the net was full of great fishes, it did not break. .....

John 21:7 Therefore that disciple whom Jesus loved saith unto Peter, It is the Lord. Now when Simon Peter heard that it was the Lord, he girt his fisher's coat unto him, (for he was naked,) and did cast himself into the sea. 8 And the other disciples came in a little ship; (for they were not far from land, but as it were two hundred cubits,) dragging the net with fishes. 9 As soon then as they were come to land, they saw a fire of coals there, and fish laid thereon, and bread. 10 Jesus saith unto them, Bring of the fish which ye have now caught. 11 Simon Peter went up, and drew the net to land full of great fishes, an hundred and fifty and three: and for all there were so many, yet was not the net broken.

As they obeyed the instructions given by Jesus, they found fish and brought them to shore, just as Jesus said.  What Jesus told them to do worked. 

I was reminded of a situation I faced several years ago.  While working as a computer programmer, we had been working on a fairly complex project for several months.  Two days before the final tests were to start, I was told that additional, very complex functionality needed to be included in the system before the tests could start.  I worked many hours trying to see a way to add this, but without success.  There seemed nothing to do but delay the entire project by several more months.  I dreaded giving this report the following morning, and poured out my concerns to God. 

That night I woke with very clear instructions about how to provide the additional functionality with just a few additional lines of code.  I believe God brought this information to me.  It took only about an hour to make and test the changes, and it worked perfectly. 

When we hear from God what to do and do that, even in secular things such as this, His instruction will work.