“Then Jesus declared, ‘I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.'” John 6:35

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to go with my son to help work on his cottage. One of the perks of going there is the big dock that overlooks the Gulf of Mexico. Yesterday, the water was as clear as crystal. A few other families were out there as well, and I watched a little boy catch 2 fish… to my zero! He was as giddy as a 5 year old could be with a fish on the line.

A few other folks were catching fish, and as I looked down into the water I could clearly see hundreds of different kinds of fish. The natural question of the day was, “what are you using for bait?” In every case, the answer was some kind of natural bait that fish are used to eating. I had an artificial shrimp on my line and, try as I may to make it look real. It didn’t!

After about an hour, with only a few tugs at the bait, we called it quits and headed back to work on the cottage. Our goal was to make it more appealing and comfortable for his family to want to go and visit there. It wasn’t hard to figure out what to do. All we had to do is use our own sense of comfort as a gauge for success. ‘Cool’ and ‘clean’ became the ‘bait’ target.

When it comes to bait, there really isn’t anything more powerful than using hunger and thirst as targets for catching things. People included. Jesus carefully laid out His Father’s plan in His ‘fishing for men’ task. Having carefully crafted the plan, God sent His Son to us, in the form of a man, to get to know, understand and entice us to come to Him to be satisfied in our needs.

One of the easiest gauges I use, to KNOW if I am walking with the Lord, is to check my satisfaction levels. Am I hungry? Am I thirsty? Is God supplying all my needs? Do I find myself with a desire to look for anything else? And if I am, is that desire an artificial, or a real need? There are enemy desires that can look very appealing, but prove only fake… and fatal.

What captures YOUR attention? Can you see that there are things out there that, while they may bait you into offering satisfaction, only let you down? ‘Jesus Works’ is a saying at our church… and for a reason. Because He DOES! What are YOU fishing for?