This article is about fishing, phishing, vishing and mishing. You should know the first two terms.

Fishing is where you go to the river or lake and catch fish. Once you catch them you then need to clean the fish and then cook and you eat them. To be a fisher or a fisherman is an honorable term.

Phishing is a recent term that has become popular for describing e-mail and web sites people develop to mis-lead and get you to give them personal information about yourself. It is a 21st century word, but I would suspect very few English speaking people don't know this word, although they may not know how to use the Internet. To be a phisher is not an honorable term and is an illegal and unethical pursuit.

Just the end of last week I learned another similar term. I had received a number of phish ing e-mails faking to be from EPPIcard and I was curious whether that is a real credit card. I went to their site and found it is and it is a bill payment system. I also discovered immediately I am not the only one being hit by tons of phishers using their name. They have a box on their main page, prominently displayed, warning about many phishing and vishing attacks. Vishing was a new term. I had to read a little more in the paragraph and I realized what a visher is. A visher is a phisher who phishes using the telephone. They are using the pre-Internet way of phishing, but is apparently popular among the "EPPI" phishers. I thought that was an interesting new word. To be a visher is not an honorable term and is an illegal and unethical pursuit.

That set off in my mind that if Jesus was talking about being fishers of men today, what would he call it? If he was going with current terminology/slang it would be something different than fishers. I came up with the term mishing. A misher is someone who fishes for men for God. If EPPI or someone else can make up the word visher, then I can make the word misher.

Think further on what this call that Jesus gave us, to be mishers, is. He called us just to do the mishing or fishing but not the follow-up work that many dread about fishing, which is cleaning the fish. Fish markets make money on this dread. Jesus called us to catch the men and women, but he said he and God will do the cleaning. Just as you have to clean all fish before you can use them to cook, no matter how clean the fish or the body of water it was in, all men have to be cleaned by God. Some are cleaner than others when they decide to follow Jesus and God and some are outright nasty dirty, but God and Jesus will clean them all. Likewise some of the fish we eat are not at all clean when caught, but still make a great meal after clea ning.

It is not our job to worry about how dirty they are and can they be cleaned when we are mishers, but our job is just one; mish. God and Jesus will take them then and will clean and then put them in service as God sees them best fit. Notice we all go in service for God after being mished just as those fish we catch are then used in our service either as food for us or bait for bigger fish, but the fish caught by fishers and people caught by mishers are all in service.

I am using the term men in mishers in the generic sense meaning people; men and women. All of us need caught by God, some of us have already been and some are waiting for the bait and hook, but HJesus called for all people or all mankind .

Go and be mishers for God and when you go fishing, or someone tries to phish/vish you, remember God and Jesus call all their followers to be mishers for God.

This is the outline for a sermon/devotional I was going to do, and I had planned to write after delivering, but I got the night off for the holiday, but felt I needed to write and publish now anyway. If you hear me speak in the near future, this may be the basis of the message.

Dwight

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