I Am Come That They Might Have Life...

Who made you alive? Jesus! But he’s not talking about living and breathing and eating and working. He’s not talking about physical life – you were dead alright, but you were dead in your sins: all of us! We’ve all sinned and come short of the glory of God. Romans 5:12 says that “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin: and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned.” “The wages of sin is death,” Romans 6:23 tells us. There are plenty of ways you can think about what I’m talking about here. Lost or saved. Blind or not? Before Christ we are in the dark, but in Him we are in the light. The point is that if you want to experience any life at all, it has to come through Jesus Christ. John 10:9, “I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved…” The illustration Jesus used in the first several verses is that of a sheepfold, or a courtyard where a flock of sheep were brought in for the night. There was one door, or one gate into the yard, and the rest was surrounded by a wall of hedges or stone. Listen to me: Jesus Christ is that door. There’s only one way in. “No man comes unto the Father but by me” He said.

Abundant life begins with life period. You can fill your homes and your bank accounts and your garages all you want. You can life a great life and have plenty of friends, but I want to tell you that until you come to the place in your life where you repent of your sins and trust Christ to save you, you are dead in your sins and nothing you can do will change it. Nothing you can do will give you the life you can experience in Christ Jesus. There is absolutely no abundant life without life.

Now, once you place your faith in Christ, once you’ve been made alive in Him, the question is whether you are experiencing abundant life, or whether you are simply existing and treading water with the life God has given you in Christ. You see, most believers are not experiencing abundant life, but Jesus said that He came to give it.

Now, if the life Christ offers is spiritual life, it also means that the abundant life Christ offers is spiritual as well. You cannot say that abundant life is about physical or material things. If it is, then there are hundreds of thousands of believers who will never experience what Christ offers. God never promised abundance of stuff. He may bless you with it and He may not. But abundant living is not connected to those things. Instead, abundant life is about a quality of life – over and above, abounding, overflowing, and far exceeding what most people settle for.

Abundant life is knowing what life is really all about and living according to the purpose for which God created you. It is about you experiencing the fulness of Christ on a regular basis and rejoicing in the grace He offers. It is about a personal, dynamic relationship with Jesus Christ so that you know the depths and heights and length and width of God’s love for you. It’s not just about seeing a little fruit in your life, but about being loaded down with spiritual fruit that your branches are touching the ground under the weight of God’s blessings.