The Meaning of Matthew 4:19—Becoming Fishers of Me

Today’s Verse

And He said to them, Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.

– Matthew 4:19

Thoughts on Today’s Verse…

In the words of the Lord Jesus we see what He expected of and entrusted to Peter and Andrew his brother—becoming His disciples, spreading His gospel, finding God’s chosen people and enabling them to return to God. This is also the Lord’s expectations of and commission to every one of us followers of God. We are fortunate to be born during the last days, be chosen by God, hear His voice, and experience His work. Spreading the gospel, and enabling more people who are living in darkness to return before God and accept God’s salvation are the missions of every one of us Christians. We’re now in the late stages of the last days, so we should even more bear God’s entrustment and fulfill our mission. Just as a paragraph says: “Are you able to communicate the disposition expressed by God in each age in a concrete way, with language that suitably conveys the significance of the age? Are you, who experience God’s work of the last days, able to describe God’s righteous disposition in detail? Can you testify about God’s disposition clearly and accurately? How will you pass on what you have seen and experienced to those pitiable, poor, and devout religious believers who hunger and thirst for righteousness and are waiting for you to shepherd them? What kind of people are waiting for you to shepherd them? Can you imagine? Are you aware of the burden on your shoulders, your commission, and your responsibility? Where is your sense of historic mission? How will you adequately serve as a master in the next age? Do you have a strong sense of masterhood? How would you explain the master of all things? Is it really the master of all living creatures and of all physical things in the world? What plans do you have for the progress of the next phase of the work? How many people are waiting for you to be their shepherd? Is your task a heavy one? They are poor, pitiable, blind, and at a loss, wailing in the darkness—where is the way? How they yearn for the light, like a shooting star, to suddenly descend and dispel the forces of darkness that have oppressed man for so many years.” “Know that when My work spreads, I will scatter you, and smite you just as Jehovah smote each of the tribes of Israel. All this will be done so that My gospel may spread across the earth, so that it may reach the Gentile nations, so that My name may be magnified by adults and children alike, and My holy name exalted in the mouths of people from all tribes and nations. It is so that, in this final era, My name may be magnified among the Gentile nations, so that My deeds may be seen by the Gentiles and they will call Me the Almighty on account of My deeds, and so that My words may soon come to pass. I will make all people know that I am not only the God of the Israelites, but also the God of all the nations of the Gentiles, even those that I have cursed. I will let all people see that I am the God of all creation. This is My greatest work, the purpose of My work plan for the last days, and the only work to be fulfilled in the last days.”