Luke 5:8-11
When Simon Peter saw it, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord.  For he was astonished, and all that were with him, at the draught of the fishes which they had taken: And so was also James, and John, the sons of Zebedee, which were partners with Simon. And Jesus said unto Simon, Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men.  And when they had brought their ships to land, they forsook all, and followed him.

What an amazing moment that must have been to see the net overflowing with fish after coming up empty the night the before.  And Peter is left in awe, and perhaps he starts to see himself and Jesus a little differently than he had before.  He feels unworthy to be in Jesus’ presence, knowing the kind of man he is, knowing what sin dwells deep in his heart.  But Jesus is like, “Don’t worry about that.  I know who you are, and I’m going to use you anyway.  I have plans for you.  Just come with Me.”

And isn’t it like that for all of us?  We see Jesus and realize His greatness and holiness.  We are left in awe by what He can do.  But then we see ourselves, sinners that we are, full of stains and scars and mistakes, so imperfect.  And we may start to feel like Jesus is going to have to choose someone else because we are just too unworthy.  We can feel like our sin means we are disqualified from having anything to do with Jesus.

But Jesus knows what He has to work with.  If He wants to use people to accomplish His work, He has no choice but to use sinners, because all have sinned.  And Jesus has plans for us, good plans.  He has a job for us, and He wants to use us.  He has some ideas about how He’s going to build us up so that we can become who He wants us to be.  He can take care of our sin problem.  He can help with what makes us so broken.  He can do something about what makes us unworthy and make us usable for Him.

So may we be willing to simply go and experience life with Jesus.  May we be willing to lay down our past and become something new in Christ.  He knows exactly who we are when He asks anything of us.  And He can shape and mold those things that make us uniquely who we are to serve His purposes.  Yes, we are sinners, but that doesn’t mean Jesus doesn’t want to use us.  It doesn’t mean we can’t leave behind those old versions of ourselves and follow Jesus anywhere He wants to take us.