John 21:4

John 21:4 says, But when the morning was now come, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples knew not that it was Jesus.  The disciples had been fishing all night.  They had caught nothing, which had to add to their frustration.  Though they had seen the empty tomb, and Jesus had appeared to them after the resurrection, they were seemingly still at a loss as to what they should do next, and weren't even successful at what at least some of them had done before.  They were no longer looking for Jesus, but He was there on the shore. When we are in doubt about what to do next, we need to look to God for direction.  Verse five says, Then Jesus saith unto them, "Children, have ye any meat?"   And they answered Him, "No."  These were grown men, but they were followers of Jesus and children of God. As His followers, when God calls to us, it as His children, not as anything we were before.  He will not leave us in doubt and confusion if we only listen to Him.  Jesus asked if they had caught anything.  When we are off, doing our own thing, God is always going to be questioning us about how successful we are by going our own way.  There is always going to be a sense of a lack of fulfillment when we are not looking to God for direction.  We cannot follow God as we should if our focus is on the world.  It must have been even more frustrating for the disciples to have to admit their failure even at fishing.  There was nothing sinful about fishing, except it wasn't what Jesus had called them to do, and they were doing it by their own design.  There are many things today that are not sinful, but if we are doing them without God's leadership then they are wrong.  We must do everything under His leadership if we are to be faithful followers.

John 21:3

John 21:3 says, Simon Peter saith unto them, "I go a fishing."  They say unto him, "We also go with thee."  They went forth and entered into a ship immediately; and that night they caught nothing.  A lot had happened in a few days in the lives of the disciples, and though they were gathering together, they didn't seem to be doing much else. Sometimes, life can get to be a little overwhelming for us, and when it does, what do we do?  Gathering together as Christians is a good start, but we must be ready to move forward in our service to God. We cannot allow conditions in the world to dictate our serving God. Peter chose to go back to what he had done before he met Jesus.  He was going fishing, which is what Jesus had called him away from. When we are seemingly overwhelmed by the world as followers of Christ, it might be comforting to just go back to everyday life and forget what we are called for, but it is not the answer.  Peter and the disciples had a new calling.  The were to be fishers of men.  We have that same calling.  Our primary purpose as Christians is to present the gospel.  That does not mean that we don't have other jobs, but if God calls us away from a particular job in order to serve Him, we need not run back to it when things aren't going as we hoped.  Peter had made his living as a fisherman, but that night they caught nothing.  He had to have been even more frustrated.  When we attempt to go back to what we were before we met Jesus, we can never be fully satisfied, even if we are successful in the eyes of the world.  Peter and the disciples had a new calling, which was to come and follow Jesus. That is our calling today.  Even in our most stressing moments of feeling defeated, we must follow His calling.  We will find satisfaction nowhere else.

John 21:1

John 21:1 says, After these things, Jesus shewed Himself again to the disciples at the sea of Tiberias; and on this wise shewed He Himself. The disciples were no longer locked away but were out in the world again.  That is where God expects His people to be.  Yes, we need to gather together at times, but we are commissioned to go into the world.  We cannot win the lost by withdrawing from the world.  We can be assured that when we are in the world, God is with us.  The Holy Spirit indwells all believers, and to borrow from a commercial, we never leave home without Him.  Verse two says, There were together Simon Peter, and Thomas called Didymus, and Nathaniel of Cana in Galilee, and the sons of Zebedee, and two other of His disciples.  Seven of the eleven remaining disciples were there.  Peter, who was always quick to act, was one.  Thomas, who was prone to doubt was another.  Two were not named, but were there still identifying with the others .  Four were not there, so they missed this meeting with Jesus.  No matter how we may have failed as His followers, God does not abandon us.  Peter had denied Jesus and Thomas had doubted His resurrection, but He had not abandoned them.  We are all different in nature.  Some of us are act quickly and boldly as Peter usually did and some are more questioning as Thomas was, but God is there for all of us.  When we fail, as we will, we do not need to live in despair.  God is still with us, to forgive and strengthen us.  The disciples accepted Peter and Thomas as still being fellow disciples.  When someone fails as a Christian, and asks God for forgiveness, we need to accept them without judgment or reservation.  When someone is restored, that person is fully restored.  We cannot feel that we are better than them.  The world may hold their actions against them, but God washes away all sin.  Jesus came to them while they were going about life, and the Holy Spirit does the same with us today.  He is with us always.

John 20:30

John 20:30 says, And many other signs truly did Jesus do in the presence of His disciples, which are not written in this book.  John was not giving us a detailed, minute by minute account of the life of Jesus, either before His crucifixion or after His resurrection.  Verse thirty-one adds, But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing, ye might have life through His name.  We do not study the Bible because it is good literature or good history or science.  We study the Bible to learn about God and His Son Jesus Christ that we might have life through Christ.  Once we have that life through Him, we study the Bible to learn how to relate to the world under the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus did not have a long ministry nor a long life, but if every event had been recorded, the book would have been several volumes long. What is recorded is all that we need to know to understand Jesus in relationship to God the Father and to mankind.  There have been those who have sought to prove that Jesus was a historical figure to make it easier for people to believe in Him.  We have all the proof we need in this Book called the Bible.  It is a record of God's revelation of Himself to mankind and His calling of mankind into a personal relationship with Him, which will ultimately culminate with each person in God's presence forever or separated from Him forever through Christ.  What Jesus did for the eight days between visits to the disciples has no bearing on salvation.  If we needed to know every detail of the life of Jesus to be saved, it would have been recorded for us.  John said that what was written was what we needed to know so that we could believe in Jesus and have salvation.  All we really must know is Jesus Christ, crucified, resurrected, and Lord, and we accept this by faith alone.  We may demand a sign, but ultimately, we must accept in faith by the sign of the cross.

John 20:26

John 20:26 says, And after eight days again were His disciples within, and Thomas was with them: then came Jesus, the door being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace be unto you."  Eight days had passed since Jesus first appeared to the disciples.  We are not told what they had been doing for these eight days but imagine how Thomas must have felt for that period of time.  He had said he would not believe until he had physical proof.  I wonder how often we spend days in doubt waiting for physical proof from God instead of just moving ahead in faith.  Jesus once again offered them peace. When we stop living by sight and start living by faith, we will find peace.  The events of those few days had not changed, but Jesus offered the prospective of peace through belief in Him.  We often cannot change our circumstances, but we can change the way we deal with them through faith in God. Verse twenty-seven adds, Then He saith to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger and behold My hands, and reach hither thy hand and thrust it into My side: and be not faithless, but believing."  Thomas had said he needed physical proof, and Jesus offered it, but with a call to faith and belief.  Physical proof without faith and belief in God is not enough, nor will it ever satisfy our needs.  Through faith alone can we truly believe God.  Verse twenty-eight continues, And Thomas said unto Him, "My Lord and my God." Jesus was offering Thomas the physical proof that he said he had to have.  There is no evidence that Thomas actually touched Jesus's hands and side, but instead finally accepted Him by faith.  Jesus was no longer a defeated man to Thomas, but a resurrected Lord.  Verse twenty-nine concludes, Jesus saith unto him, "Thomas, because thou has seen, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed."  I think we can apply that same statement to our faith today.  If we only believe what God tells us if we see proof we think we need in order to believe, we miss the blessing of just believing no matter what.

John 20:24

John 20:24 says, But Thomas, one of the twelve, called Didymus, was not with them when Jesus came.  We are not told where he was, but he did not see the risen Jesus. The other disciples were gathered together, but Thomas was absent.  Though we cannot always be together with all Christians, we may miss a real blessing when we fail to gather with others.  Verse twenty-five adds, The other disciples said therefore unto him, "We have seen the Lord."  But he said unto them, "Except I shall see in His hands the print of the nails, and put my fingers into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into His side, I will not believe."  Thomas was a skeptical man.  He evidently had not listened when Jesus had said He would rise again on the third day, or didn't fully believe Him.  There are people today who hear the gospel, some who have grown up in Christian families and studying the Bible who are skeptical of the truth that Jesus died for our sins and was resurrected the third day, if at all.  They look for physical proof, but it comes only by faith to believe the gospel.  He did not believe his fellow disciples report.  When people today doubt the truth of the Bible, they are going to be inclined to not believe the testimony of Christians.  Again, until someone comes to a personal knowledge of Christ as Savior, they are not going to accept someone else's word for it.  Thomas said he needed physical proof he could verify for himself.  If we demand physical proof of the truth of salvation, we are going to miss that truth.  We can only come by faith.  Thomas was one of the twelve closest to Jesus, and he did not yet understand Who Jesus really was.  Being close to those who are closest to God today doesn't mean we understand Who Jesus is.  People can be like the other disciples were with Thomas and tell us that they have seen the truth of the gospel, but we may still demand physical proof. Yet ultimately, we must simply accept by faith.

John 20:22

John 20:22 says, And when He had said this, He breathed on them and saith unto them, "Receive ye the Holy Ghost."  The disciples had just been told they were being sent by Jesus as the Father had sent Him.  Jesus had come to redeem the world, and the disciples were now to be His representatives in this task.  We as followers of Christ have the same task today.  They were not being sent under their own power though, but under the power of the Holy Ghost.  We today go under that same power.  Once more, when we see the corruption and evil in the world, we do not need to fear, because God is with us since the Holy Spirit indwells us.  Wherever we go or whatever we do, the Holy Spirit goes with us.  The Holy Spirit does not just come to us in times of trouble and then leave but is with us always to help us carry out our commission.  Verse twenty-three adds, "Whose so ever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whose so ever sins ye retain, they are retained."  This was Jesus talking, so we need to understand what He was really saying.  We do not have the power to forgive sins.  Only Jesus has this power.  What we have the power to do is present the gospel under the power of the Holy Spirit, and those who accept the gospel have their sins forgiven.  Those who do not don't have their sins forgiven.  As disciples of Christ, we are called on to present the gospel.  Those who receive it are forgiven.  No one can change the gospel and be redeemed.  Everyone who would come to God must come through Christ, and the first thing they must do is ask for God's forgiveness.  We cannot just learn from our mistakes and be a better person.  This would mean we redeem ourselves, and we can never do this.  Those who accept the message of Christ when we present it are forgiven.  The message cannot be altered or watered down.  Through Christ alone is forgiveness and restoration made possible.