Do You Want to Know the Secret to an Abundant Life?

Read |Luke 9:23 - 24, CSB| 

I want more. Jesus has set a high standard, heights above mediocrity. In John 10:10 He declares His mission in fewer than 15 words: “I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” (CSB). Who would fight a mission like that? Who wouldn’t want to get onboard immediately?

I am a very visual person, so when I hear this statement I begin to imagine what that life actually looks like. The words form a frame and I fill them with images and color. I animate the picture with movement and sound. I see my brown skin, crinkled in the most wonderful way as it seeks to express the immeasurable joy that swells up from within. I hear the sound of laughter: laughter that perseveres in high tide and low tide. What do you think of when you think of an abundant life? 

If we have what Jesus had in mind, our vision should look like our entire beings made fat on His presence-on the reality of His very life freely expressed in and through us.

This is what Jesus had in mind: 

1. That we would have Him, in whom there is life. (John 1:4).​​
2. ​That we would have (experience) Him, beyond the meeting of our day-to-day needs, as the delightful lover of our souls.

The Good News is that Jesus Christ has perfectly fulfilled the requirements for our access, to both life and life more abundantly:

1. We have life in Him by grace through faith (complete reliance) in the sufficiency of His life, death and resurrection for the full and eternal payment of our sins and our eternal right standing with God. (John 3:16 and Romans 5).
2. We experience Him as the Provider because, having been eternally pardoned of our sins and reconciled unto God through His sacrifice, we have been filled with His Holy Spirit and placed under His faithful care as His very own children. (Ephesians 1:13 and 1 John 3:1).
3. We experience Him as the Lover of Our Souls when we continue (beyond the point of saving faith) to rely on Him wholly because of who He is, His great love for us and, as a consequence of our growing love for Him. (John 15:9 - 10). 

To enter into life more abundantly, we must do what Jesus Christ tells His disciples in Luke 9: 23 - 24: “Then he said to them all, “If anyone wants to follow after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will save it.” (CSB).

We must deny ourselves by daily laying down our thoughts, expectations, purposes in all areas of our lives, i.e. spiritually, emotionally, physically, relationally, financially and vocationally.  We must take up His cross daily (symbolic of His all sufficient and eternal provision for our souls in this world and the life to come), allowing the reality of who He is and what He has accomplished on our behalf to inform our entire living. We must follow Him daily by embracing His thoughts, expectations, purposes and plans in every aspect of our lives, i.e. spiritually, emotionally, physically, relationally, financially and vocationally. (Proverbs 3: 5 - 6).

Beloved, it is in our daily denial of ourselves, taking up of His cross and following Him, that we enter into the abundant life Jesus has in mind for us.
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Prepare your girl to discern between her own thoughts, expectation and purposes and God’s by giving her a Bible she can begin to read, meditate on and study with you. Receive guidance on how to select the appropriate Bible for her needs by reading this resource by The Gospel Project: 3 Things to Consider When Choosing a Bible for Your Child.

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Reflect

How does today’s sharing invite you, as a child of God, to live? (Hint: use the categories below to help you reflect).

• Spiritually: How you relate to God.
• Soul and Mind: How you think, choose, your sense of right and wrong and your feelings.
• Body: What you do with it (actions); where you take it (environment); how you treat it (give and or withhold); with whom you share it and why.​