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• The issue is not will you have challenges in life; the issue is how you will deal with the challenges that ultimately come.
• One of the hardest things about life is the discouragement that comes at the hands of people.
• If the discouragements don't get you, then failure will begin to haunt your spirit.
• If those kinds of things don't get you, then the distractions of this world will distract you from the things that really count.
• Some of God's best people struggled so deeply with these types of things that they began to go "off mission" or "off calling."
• One of those people is one of our favorite guys in the New Testament—Peter.

• Jesus says to Peter: Do you agape me?
• Agape love is the highest form of love; it's a not an emotional response, but a volitional one.
• Peter replies: Yes, Lord, you know that I phileo you.
• Phileo is the word for brotherly love.
• The theory that Jesus is trying to ratchet up Peter's level of commitment falls apart when Jesus says: Peter, do you phileo me?
• Phileo and agape are sometimes used interchangeably.
• Three different times, Jesus is saying: If you love me, you will care about what I care about and feed my lambs.
• Jesus is talking about giving yourself to the needs and nourishment of people.
• Christ was passionately addicted to one commodity on this planet—people—and he wants the same to be true of Peter.
• When Christ came, he didn't spend most of his time with religious folks; he spent most of his time with the marginalized, the poor, the oppressed, and the disadvantaged.
  -Illustration: Stowell gives examples of who we ought to "feed" in our ministries, including those suffering from AIDS in Africa and those who need attention in third world countries.

• When I think about this triple interrogation, I think about how traumatic it would be for Jesus to go after me three times over the same point.
• Why is Jesus hounding Peter like this? The answer to that question is found in the broader context.
• In John 21:1, Simon Peter says to the majority of the disciples: Let's go back to fishing.
• For them to do what Peter is suggesting, they would have to go off mission or off calling.
• I'm not sure I blame them, because I'd be discouraged, too; things had seemingly fallen apart at the cross.
• The only hope of a resurrected Jesus is given to them in weird doses (like when Jesus suddenly materializes but then disappears).
• The other disciples follow Peter's lead, but their first night of fishing yields nothing.
• If you bail on Jesus—going off mission because you think there is something better out there—you'll fish all night, and in the end you will have caught nothing.
• Jesus suddenly appears and tells them to cast their nets on the other side of the boat; the catch is so large that the nets are breaking.
• This miracle mirrors the one Christ did for them in Luke 5 at their initial calling.
• Jesus planned the second miracle to take Peter back to the moment of his calling—when Christ was so compellingly real, that Peter gave up his business for Christ.
• Maybe this is a good thing for those of us who are a little discouraged that life is not turning out the way we thought it would.
• If you're walking with Christ, go back to the moment of your calling; remediate your heart by remembering that day.
• When Peter ran to the shore, he saw a charcoal fire.
• The word "charcoal" is only used twice in the New Testament—in this text and in the story where Peter warmed himself in the courts and denied the Lord.
• Jesus addresses Peter's failure around that fire, saying: I know that you failed, but Peter, I desperately need you.
• Isn't it nice that Jesus can use failures?
• The other thing that strikes me about this story is that though the men caught 153 large fish, Jesus is already cooking fillets of fish when they come ashore.
• Jesus is making this point: You thought you had to go off mission to care for your needs, but I carry the prerogative of your provision.
• What a dramatic example of how Jesus will provide for us when we stay on mission.
• The final thing that strikes me is that the first question is not like the second and the third.
• Jesus says, "Peter, do you love me more than these?"—but what are the "more than these"?
• Jesus is saying: Peter, do you love me more than fish?
• Jesus would ask the same question of us about the things that tempt us to go off mission.

• What are the fish in your life?
• I want you to hear Jesus say: Do you love me more than those fish?
• I'd like to believe that God would walk into our hearts like he always does, push all that stuff aside, and go right for our heart.
• I wonder if he sees a wide-open door to a heart that beats with his passion.
• Or, I wonder if there's a little sign swinging on the door of your heart that says "Gone Fishin'."