Shoreline City · Shoreline City Church

Fishing with Jesus | Bob and Linda Lotich

March 8, 2026·42 min·3 clips

Linda reveals that giving more money, not less, miraculously paid off their debt against all spreadsheet logic.

1. Shoreline City church hosts Bob and Linda Lotich, Christian personal finance teachers, for a message on God's role in financial miracles. 2. Pastor Earl McClellan and his wife Onika introduce the Lotichs, noting Earl discovered their blog and had his entire staff go through their curriculum over eight Tuesday lunch sessions. 3. The message's thesis is that there are two paths to financial change: 'fishing all night long' (self-effort, discipline, Dave Ramsey-style hustle) and 'fishing with Jesus' (obeying counter-intuitive God-led instructions). 4. Bob and Linda establish their core reframe: Linda is a natural spender and Bob a spreadsheet saver; God made each of them that way on purpose, and their union is designed to balance each other rather than one being wrong. 5. The message uses John 21:3-6 as its anchor text: Peter and disciples fish all night and catch nothing; Jesus appears at dawn, tells them to cast on the right side, and they can't haul in the net for the weight of fish. 6. Bob describes his financial rock bottom at roughly age 31: stranded 1,000 miles from home, $7 in his checking account, one nearly maxed credit card, car broken down, rent due same day — all while employed at a bank. 7. In that moment Bob cried out to God on the steering wheel, saying 'I don't even know how I got here, but if you know how to get out, please help' — framing it as the first time he ever invited God into his finances. 8. Linda's parallel starting point: living at her parents' house at 20 with a full-time job, spending 150% of her income, ending up with debt collectors calling her parents' landline — motivating her to pray for a spouse who was good at math. 9. After marrying, the couple followed Dave Ramsey's debt-snowball approach on a $45 weekly grocery budget, with Bob fasting on Fridays when money ran out before the week ended. 10. They describe their first 'fishing with Jesus' moment: Linda felt led to give more money during a season when they were trying to pay off debt and Bob had a pink slip with six months remaining; the debt was eliminated faster than the spreadsheet predicted. 11. After paying off all credit cards and student loans, they were putting a couple thousand dollars a month toward the mortgage and projected payoff in 3.5 to 4 years. 12. While praying in a field near their house, Bob heard a specific instruction: 'Give your age as a percentage of your income' — which at age 31 meant tripling their giving and eliminating the extra mortgage payments. 13. The spreadsheet now showed a 10-year payoff; Linda's response was to trust based on remembered faithfulness rather than panic over the numbers, saying 'Let's go for it.' 14. Ten months later they paid off the mortgage in full — the spreadsheet said 10 years, God did it in 10 months — and neither Bob nor Linda attribute it to their financial skill. 15. Bob describes the downstream effect: with 31% earmarked monthly for giving in a separate account, they began actively looking for places to deploy it, which he describes as one of the most fun experiences of their financial life. 16. He recommends any listener set aside a dedicated giving bucket — even $50/month — pre-committed before spending, citing 1 Corinthians 16:2: 'set aside and save from what you earn.' 17. The message concludes with a prayer challenge: listeners should ask God what counter-intuitive financial instruction he has for them, framing this not as a formula but as a personal obedience prompt. 18. The format is a two-speaker conversation between Bob and Linda with interjections, laughter, and audience responses — warm and confessional rather than formal. 19. Married couples navigating different money personalities, people struggling with debt or seeking meaning in their finances, and Christians curious about faith-based personal finance will find this directly relevant. 20. Listeners looking for secular financial advice, investment specifics, or practical budgeting tools without religious framing should look elsewhere.

As heard by us

A direct sermon on money, grace, and asking God for help.

Shoreline City uses this message to sit with the strain of faith, money, and panic all hitting at once. Earl and Onika open with a warm pastoral note about church as a place where people can drop the mask and speak plainly, and the message stays close to that promise when the…

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

When money stress leaves you stuck, this sermon goes straight at it.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from Shoreline City