Fishing for Souls: Power Source for Success

Jonathan ScottBy Jonathan Scott6 Minutes

Hello again, Jonathan Scott with Strengthen Your Walk. Let me give you a brand-new term I just learned — ichthyophobia. Ichthyophobia is the fear of fish. Some people have such a fear of fish. They don’t like to see them either live or dead. They don’t want to come anywhere near them. As a matter of fact, some people coming in contact or in sight of fish can actually have anxieties or even panic attacks because of this fear of fish.

I think some people have a similar fear toward evangelism, or speaking and sharing their faith. Maybe the fear is because of a fear of failure or a fear of rejection or a fear that they don’t know enough that they’ll mess it up and if they mess it up, they’ll mess up someone’s eternity. A lot of it has to do with us relying on our own confidence, not realizing that flowing out of our relationship with Christ is that there are already significant powers we can rely on that give us competence and confidence. As a matter of fact, these two twin powers have been responsible for not only birthing the church, but for expanding the church in a way that would turn the world upside down throughout the Roman Empire and across continents and civilizations for the last two thousand years. Those two powers are the power of the gospel and the power of the Holy Spirit — powers that are available to us that we can rely on with confidence.

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When we take a look at the power of the gospel, Paul says in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” Did you catch that? Not you have the power, but that the power is in the gospel. Quite frankly, it blows my mind that simply communicating what Jesus Christ has done, Who He is, has the power just in the communication to alter a person’s quality of life now and their eternal future. The power is in the gospel that we rely upon to make that kind of introduction to Christ and the life that He offers and is available for those of us who will share it. Romans 10:17 reminds us that “faith” — saving faith — comes from hearing the good news about Christ. And that when in a clear, compelling, authentic manner, we release the power of the gospel as we share it with others.

And then number two — the power of the Holy Spirit. What I find interesting is that, especially in the gospel of Luke and Luke’s account in Acts when it talks about the Great Commission, it mentions something that in our training we rarely mention in the Great Commission and that is the necessity of the Holy Spirit. As a matter of fact, in Luke 24, after Jesus rose from the dead and He came to His disciples and He shared with them and told them that the scriptures have been fulfilled about His death and His resurrection, He says to the disciples in verse 48, “You are witnesses of all these things and now I will send the Holy Spirit just as My Father promised; but stay here in the city until the Holy Spirit comes and fills you with power from heaven.” And then in Acts 1:8, Luke repeats that again when Jesus says, “You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses, telling people about Me everywhere, Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

The Holy Spirit has already come so we don’t need to wait for the Holy Spirit, but we need to wait on Him because the success of evangelism is not our power. It’s in Him and it is in the gospel that gives us the confidence and the competence to be faithful, to complete the command, to share and preach the gospel. Hopefully, that can allay a lot of our fears and our anxieties when we rely on the powers that have been given to us that enable us to be successful, faithful fishers of men.

Next time, when we come back, we’re going to take a look at how we engage that source with the resources that have been given to us to be successful in completing the Great Commission. I’m Jonathan Scott, we’ll see you next time on Strengthen Your Walk.

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