Notes from MetroLive:Ben Stuart

Some of my notes from last night's opening night of MetroLive 2011, from Ben Stuart, the director of BreakAway Ministries, up at College Station. MetroLive is held at my homechurch, Houston's First Baptist Church at 7:30pm.
Ben Stuart spoke on John 21, which deals with, Peter going to Galilee to return to fishing and Jesus speaking to him from the shore after a fruitless night of fishing. Ben puts out the question for us to consider: "How does God view us in our time of failure?"
The answer is that God views with love,care and concern. He seeks to restore us, to make us useful to Him.
To do this He brings us, as He did Peter, to the place of our call that God places on our life. In Peter's case, Christ recreates Peter's first encounter with Christ, after a fruitless night of fishing, Christ calls out to Peter from the shoreline, and asks a question, He fully knows the answer to, "Children, have you caught any fish?" Then Christ says "Why don't you try fishing from the rightside?" To which the disciples do and begin to catch fish aplenty. They realize it's Jesus and Peter dives into the water and swims ashore to meet the Lord. Jesus then provides breakfast for disciples.
Jesus then knowing the poison of Peter's failure which if left unchecked and unaddressed could potentially kill Peter's ministry for Christ, so Christ draws out the venom of failure by recreating the scene of Peter's denial. And proceeds to confront the failure head on by asking Peter about his devotion to Christ and allows Peter to see how his power and desire to follow Christ wasn't enough, Peter would need Christ's strength to accomplish all Christ had for him.
Christ shows it's not just about being a "fisher of men" but to go beyond that and be ready to feed His sheep.
We need to seek out Christ and ask for His help both to remember our call and when necessary to go and return to scene of our greatest failure and seek Christ's help in drawing out venom of the failure, so we may be fully ready to be used by Christ.