My older brother loves fishing. He enjoys the peace and tranquility of being on a lake, patiently waiting for a fish to bite. For him, it’s all about the catch.

When I go fishing, I focus on the messy part—cleaning the fish. As a result, the joy of experiencing a nibble on my hook eludes me because I’m envisioning scaling and gutting the fish.

It’s pretty silly, isn’t it—to think about cleaning a fish before even catching one?  

Sometimes Christians put the knife before the hook with people too. We want to clean them up before we’ve caught them. When we meet people who are not Christ followers yet, we may get offended by their language or lifestyles and think that our first job is to get them to scrub off the scales of sin they’re covered in. Worse yet, we may deem them “uncleanable” and not even cast our line in their direction.

Thankfully, Jesus didn’t fish this way. He understood the importance of the catch. He knew he would never be able to clean up our sinful hearts without getting us on the hook. He didn’t tell us to gut the sin out of our lives first and then follow him. He simply said, “Follow me,” because he knew that when we do, we are clean forever.

How did Jesus bait his hook? With empathy and compassion, with gentle words and generous acts—and always with love.

“‘Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will send you out to fish for people’” (Matthew 4:19).