Imagine the Sea of Galilee with seven discouraged fishermen dragging their empty nets to shore. They had fished all night and caught nothing. Into that quiet failure walks Jesus, cooking breakfast over a charcoal fire. Jesus didn’t start with a rebuke. He began with bread and fish, a meal. Jesus was about to define what entering into ministry His Way actually looks like. We find this account in John 21.
Jesus pulls Peter aside and asks three times, “Simon, son of John, do you love me more than these?” Each time Peter responded, “Yes, Lord; you know that I love you,” Jesus replied, “Feed my lambs…Tend my sheep…Feed my sheep” (John 21:15–17). Three denials Peter had made that he knew and followed Jesus, now three restorations; grace upon grace. Then came the sobering prophecy: “Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go” (John 21:18–19). Church tradition tells us Peter was later crucified upside down, insisting he was unworthy to die in the same manner as his Master. Jesus’ final words that morning were unchanged: “Follow me.” Peter had felt disqualified, but Christ recommissions him.
In an earlier miracle in John 6, Andrew looked at a boy’s five barley loaves and two fish. He asked sarcastically, “But what are they for so many?” (John 6:9). Jesus took that modest offering, gave thanks, and fed five thousand men, besides women and children, with twelve baskets left over (John 6:10–13). The point is clear. Nothing brought to Jesus is too small. Your “five loaves and two fish” moment is never insignificant in his hands. Ministry begins the moment we stop hiding what little we have and put it before him. The Jesus Way of stepping into ministry isn’t with impressive credentials but with honest brokenness; not with self-confidence but with love-expressed obedience; not as the obviously qualified but as the obviously forgiven and commissioned.
The world measures leaders by résumés, influence, and charisma. Jesus measures by restored relationship with Him and surrendered love. Paul explains that without love, even the most impressive gifts are worthless (1 Corinthians 13:1–3). We see such love in Mother Teresa, who picked up dying strangers because she saw Jesus in every face. We also see this love in a friend of mine, a humble septic truck driver and lawn care worker named Brad Swan, who became one of the most fruitful disciple-makers I’ve ever known, simply because Jesus asked, “Do you love me?” and Brad responded, “Yes,” and followed.
Paul explains, “For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God” (1 Corinthians 1:27–29). Jesus took denieing, discouraged, back-to-fishing disciples and makes them the foundation of His church. He takes boys with sack lunches, mothers who feel like “just” a mom, students who feel invisible, men and women carrying private failures, and says, “If you love me, feed my sheep. Follow me.”
Ministry the Jesus Way is never about what we bring to the table; it’s about who is already seated at the head of it. Jesus doesn’t wait for us to fix ourselves or polish our qualifications. He restores us at the very place of our most profound regret, redefines success as faithful love, and sends the overlooked with nothing but his authority and presence.
Even today, beside your own charcoal fire of memory and shame, Jesus asks, “Do you love me?” That is the core qualification. Answer honestly, receive his complete forgiveness, and step into the ministry he has already prepared. Bring your weakness, your ordinary days, your five loaves and two fish. Declare your love and follow him wherever he leads. Because when restored, ordinary people obey an extraordinary Savior, the obedient become unstoppable, and Jesus receives all the glory. That is the Jesus Way to step into ministry. Soli Deo Gloria (Glory to God Alone)!