Fishing is a hobby I enjoy. I have, over the years, been able to find time to go fishing even if things were rather busy for me. It is a relaxing, meditative time. I can be quiet and calm, and enjoy the creation as I wait for the fish to bite on my hook. As a proverbial little saying puts it, “A bad day fishing is still better than a good day at work!” Here in my region of the world, we are just coming on toward spring. The lakes are thawing from their winter ice cover. And, below the surface of the lake, the fish are getting ready to spawn. So, here in Michigan, we have rules about when the fishing season opens. One cannot disturb the mating of the fish or they will soon be depleted by over-fishing. But, that does not stop us fishermen from looking forward to the day when the fishing season opens for us to pursue our hobby.
Called to be a Fisher of Men
I know that some of you who are reading this are fishermen by trade. You earn your living at fishing. Fishing, for you, is much more than a hobby to be occasionally engaged in – it is an everyday endeavor. In those terms, you are much like some men I read about in the Bible than I am. We know then as Peter and Andrew, James and John. These are the first men that Jesus called to be his disciples.
The story goes like this (see Matthew 4). Jesus had been subjected to a period of temptation by the Evil One in the wilderness. Upon returning from the wilderness, Jesus heads to the area of Palestine we know as Galilee. It was the geographical area in which he had been raised. His hometown of Nazareth was found there. It was also the place where there was a large inland lake called the Sea of Galilee.
The sea is formed as the Jordan River runs south from the hills to the north. It enters a large area where it flows slowly in the currents of the 64 sq miles (166 sq km) of the lake. What is interesting about the lake is that it is nearly 700 feet (210 m) BELOW sea level. The Jordan River takes up its course again as it flows south from the lake to finally end up at the Dead Sea. The Sea of Galilee is a place where, in Jesus’ day, a flourishing fishing trade was found. The ancient historian Josephus tells us that 230 boats were regularly out on the lake engaged in fishing for a living.
Jesus Said, Follow Me.
Among them were two boats owned by the brothers Andrew and Peter, and the brothers James and John. One day, as these men were washing their nets at the water’s edge, a man came along and simply said, “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” What happened is that these guys to whom very few paid any attention in the religious world, these guys simply left their boats and followed Jesus to become fishers of men. These men formed the heart of the group of disciples of Jesus. They as men trained to be fishermen, would become the great leaders of the church as it was born. One could almost say that Jesus and these men formed the first edition of Christian Leaders Institute!
Free Ministry Training
Jesus took people as they were and trained them to be the leaders of his church. He did not ask them for a payment of tuition. He carefully taught them the truths of God. He sent them out to practice. Then, when they came back, he went over how things had gone for them in their efforts to put into practice what he taught them. Their training often centered in the towns around the Sea of Galilee, so they were not asked to relocate to a different area hundreds of miles away.
The way Jesus worked is still going on today. At Christian Leaders Institute, we are discovering how many people are busy in an occupation when Jesus comes along and gives them a new vocation (a calling) to be a person who is a fisher of people. Listen to one of our students,
I am Roslin Marcelus. I was born in Haiti. I am married and father of three. I have a degree in automotive from the New England Institute of technology and a Bachelor of Science at the University of Bridgeport. I have a Master’s degree in Global Development and Peace. I have also earned a certificate in human resources management.
When I approached the Christian Leaders Institute website to start learning about ministry, I did not have in mind that it would be a hands-on training opportunity. I was offered a way to personally improve my relationship with God. Now I am starting to understand my mission. I want not only to serve God but to be able to be an instrument that helps others come to know the Savior, Jesus Christ. The Year 2014 will a new beginning as I pray the Lord to guide me to the next step.
So here is a man who is busy at his occupation and along comes Jesus and calls him to become a fisher of men. It is a great privilege for us all as the staff of CLI to be engaged in doing the training which is needed for these individuals to become the best servants of Jesus they can be. Here they learn of their mission as Jesus calls them, not to give up their life’s work, but to see it embellished with the added joy of going fishing!
Calixte Jesutola Fadeyi of South Africa was able to pursue his calling as a preacher and leader of the church despite not having the finances needed to attend a traditional seminary. He was able to receive training that was much needed in order to best pursue his calling through a Bible School that reaches South Africa through the internet. At Christian Leaders Institute, he doesn’t need to pay any tuition, books, or associated fees for classes. This is why he can study at CLI as long as he can afford a basic internet connection.
Calixte Jesutola Fadeyi Shares His Ministry Journey
I’m living in South Africa and doing my ministry as I can by praying and preaching for people because I haven’t yet opened my church.
I knew the Lord since a young age, but my love to Him was not as strong as it is now. When tribulations, difficulties, and afflictions started, I looked for the ways to get out of these issues what made me visiting churches.There,they revealed to me that I’m “anointed.” I didn’t believe or take sincerely this revelation,but problems were getting worst.I went back to those churches asking for the assistance in prayer. They assuring me that the only solution is to work for God as he chooses me as his Messenger or Pastor. And, despite my stubbornness, he has saved from a lot of difficulties as sickness, accident, and attacks from darkness forces.
My primarily dream is to open church and continue studying at Christian Leaders Institute until I get all the Certificates.
Most of people who know me are calling me “Pastor” or “Man of the Lord” because of my activities of praying and preaching to them.
The positive answer that God is always giving to my prayers for people especially healing, deliverance, encourages me to pursue my ministry. I feel happy when people are healed through prayers.
The challenge which I’m facing is that some people don’t like to listen to the preaching except prophecies or when they are seeking something from God.
Actually, I was attending roman catholic church, but now I belong to an evangelic church.
Some of my family members were not surprised that I am pursuing ministry because of my behaviors since my small age and my late mother wished me to become Priest.
My hope is to get this scholarship at Christian Leaders Institute in order to fulfill my dreams because my financial situation is not balanced.
I recently received a recall notice from the company that made the car I drive around. The notice tells me that there is something really wrong with a switch that is supposed to alert the drivers behind me when I step on the brakes. This switch turns on what are called the brake lights to let the person behind me know I am stopping. The recall notice tells me that in some of the cars like mine, this switch has not been working all the time. What happens then is the driver behind that car does not know it is stopping, and often strikes it from behind. This is not a good thing.
So the company issued a recall notice that said I need to bring my car into a repair facility to have the switch replaced. It is not that the switch can be repaired. It simply must be replaced. It is not doing the job it was made for and so must be totally replaced.
In the Bible, we find that God has looked upon humanity and has decided that our spiritual hearts are not functioning in the manner that he intended when he made us. God tells us that we have hearts of stone, and he needs to replace that heart with a heart made of flesh. As the prophet Ezekiel says in chapter 11, “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh,….” By that God is telling us that he has issued a recall notice for all of humanity. God looks on us and sees that we do not have a heart focused on a single person worthy of worship. Our hearts are all over the place, and when it comes to God, it is as if we are made of stone.
So a recall notice has and is going out to all of humanity. I received my car’s recall notice in the mail. It had started its journey to me from the same place that all the rest of the notices had gone out from, but it was presented to me by the last person in a long line of workers in the post office of the United States. Every one of those people was important in getting the notice to me, but without the efforts of the last person who carried the mail to me personally, all the work of the others would have been in vain.
God, in issuing his recall notice, started it out in the hands of the people who wrote the Bible for us. Since then it has been handed down from one person to the next to the next until finally it gets to each of us personally. That is what each person who knows Jesus is privileged to bring to the next one in line to hear it.
In the Bible there is a wonderful story about God coming to Moses to issue a recall notice. Moses, from his infancy, had been raised to be the leader of Israel, but when he was about 40, life took a bad turn for him and he ran from God and from his calling. For the next forty years, while God’s people suffered in slavery, Moses lived in obscurity in a faraway place, far from his calling. So God went to Moses in a burning bush and issued a recall notice that he could not escape.
God told him that his people were suffering, they were crying out for someone to set them free. They were longing for a deliverer. But the deliverer had forgotten his call; he needed a recall. Might we say that Moses’ heart had turned to stone in terms of his calling to lead Israel out of slavery? God comes and gives Moses a heart of flesh for his people. And Moses goes back in obedience to God and lives out his calling to set his people free.
God Continues to Call His Chosen Leaders to Set His People Free
I am convinced that God has not stopped issuing recall notices for many of us who have wandered far from him. A pastor in Zambia writes, “I am Pastor Matthew, called to serve the Lord Almighty. I was born again on the 7th May, 1999, in a miraculous way. I had just come from drinking and I had had a fight. My jeans were stained with blood. When I was chased from my uncle’s place, I found myself in a church which had all night prayers. From that day, all was changed in my life.” His heart of stone was changed to a heart of flesh. Now Matthew’s vision is to be the pastor a large church “where the power of God is operating. I am called to help many people who are enslaved in various problems to return to God…The vision of church planting never departs from my mind.”
Pastor Matthew got his recall notice and now he is focused on getting that notice out to as many people as he can. God, when he recalled Moses, said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land…”
At Christian Leaders Institute, we train men and women for the wonderfully frightening task of being people who carry the Lord’s recall notice to his suffering people. All over the earth, there are people who are being crushed by any number of difficult slave drivers. God hears their cry, he knows they need to be recalled so they too may have the heart of flesh which will, with his power, give them the strength to destroy every stronghold that is in rebellion to God. Who will carry the recall notices to them? Everyone in the long chain of people who have been entrusted with that notice are important. But it is the final person who is key in God’s great mission to set people free from the Evil One.
Who is God laying on your heart, even as you read this? Do you hear him issuing a recall notice and, do you know that he is calling you to be the last person in the line to get that notice to his suffering people? If you need training to be the best carrier of that notice you can be, we want to give you that training. In God’s great mission, we see our calling as the equipping of all of you who will carry the message for the last mile to God’s expectant people.