Abundant Life

Until a couple of months ago, we thought that our income would significantly decrease in about 18 months. Because of that, we have been living very frugally, trying to save up money and pay off some leftover debt. A few months ago, we found out that we had misunderstood some things and that we actually will not have a decrease in our income. We have been living as if we were poorer than we really are.

It’s very easy for us to live our spiritual lives this same way. As believers, we have access to God’s unspeakable love, grace, joy, and more!! But, too often, we live in fear and worry. It’s easier to sit back in our comfortable Christian lives of doing what’s easy and not taking any risks. God has so much more for us, though. All we have to do is reach out for this abundant life we’ve been promised. Jesus said (in John 10:10), “I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.”

When we move through our fear and really trust God, the rewards are huge. A few years ago, our family went to Venezuela for a week’s worth of mission work at a boys’ ranch. It was a real step of faith, but the joy and love was amazing!

C. S. Lewis put it well in a sermon in 1941: “Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

And here’s how Steven Curtis Chapman interprets this idea.

God’s promises are truly amazing and I want to live life “to the full” in serving God! How have you learned to live God’s abundant life? How has Jesus been truly real in your life?

P.S. I don’t mean to suggest in the first paragraph that we shouldn’t live frugally even when our income allows for a more extravagant lifestyle. That’s a whole ‘nother discussion!! I’m just trying to make the point that we were living with incorrect information.