Defining the Abundant Life

In John 10:10, Jesus said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” Throughout Scripture we find Jesus often speaking about the abundant life that He offers to all who follow Him. But this begs the question, what exactly is the abundant life? Is it more money? More possessions? More vacations? More status?

Just last night I was speaking to my brother about the Lord and he was saying that the world tells you to go to school, get a good paying job, save your money for retirement and then retire. But what about after retirement? What do you do then? The world never discusses life after death and what we should do to prepare. Of course, this is based largely on the fact that the world does not know God and is not concerned with the things of God (Romans 1). But this still does not change the fact that the one thing all of us are going to experience regardless of age, stature, or success is death. Yet, we spend so little time preparing. So much of Jesus’ teachings were based on the kingdom of God and designed to get men and women thinking about things of eternal value versus temporal value. God tells us in Ecclesiastes 3:11 that He has set eternity in the hearts of men. But, so often we push the things of eternal value to the back burner even as Christians, don’t we?

When Jesus gave His most profound sermon in Matthew chapter 5, He spoke of a way of life that was counter intuitive to the world’s system. The selfless principles He outlined that pictured the kingdom of God were too difficult for many to comprehend as He begins each point by naming a group of people normally thought to be unblessable and pronounces them blessed because of the presence and availability of the abundant life in God's kingdom to everyone, everywhere, regardless of status, circumstances, or condition. And this is the key. It is not based on what you have or don’t have or who your parents are but on a person – Jesus Christ. To further underscore this critical spiritual reality, Jesus told us in John 14:6 that He is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life and that no one comes to the Father but by Him.”

The abundant life Jesus is offering is attained on the inside not the outside. He is extending to us an internal peace that it is not found anywhere else. This is why the Christian is able to live above his/her circumstances because the focus is on the One who has overcome the world and ensures us we will too (John 16:33). Man is preoccupied with circumstances, God is preoccupied with character. And it is within the person of Jesus Christ that we are able to cast off the old man and put on the new man in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

Eternal life as opposed to this life is not determined by duration but by a relationship with God. This is why the Scripture tell us that once a person accepts Jesus as their Lord and personal Savior that he/she possesses eternal life already (1 John 5:11-13), though not, of course, in its fullness. For you see a Christian's life revolves around “growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18). This teaches us that the abundant life is a continual process of learning, practicing, and maturing, as well as failing, recovering, adjusting, enduring, and overcoming, because, in our present state, “we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror” (1 Corinthians 13:12). One day we will see God face to face, and we will know Him completely as we will be known completely (1 Corinthians 13:12). We will no longer struggle with sin and doubt. This will be the ultimately fulfilled abundant life.

The true abundant life will display the fruits produced by the Holy Spirit - love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23), not an abundance of “stuff.” It consists of life that is eternal, and, therefore, our interest is in the eternal, not the temporal.

If you do not know the Lord, it is my hope and prayer that you will spend some time exploring the abundant life that Jesus is offering right now. His Word tells us that “today is the day of salvation.” (2 Corinthians 6:2) And Romans 10:9-10 tells us how to be saved, “If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”

Do Unto Others as Christ Has Done Unto You

I have been a Christian for more than 20 years and have come to realize through my walk with the Lord and all the peaks and valleys that spiritual growth is tied most closely to one thing – our ability to forgive others. The world tells us to “do unto others as you would have them do unto you” which sounds nice on the surface but the biblical standard is much higher. The Bible tells us to “do unto others as Christ has done unto you.” Our forgiveness is to be like Christ’s and mirror the total forgiveness that Christ exercised on our behalf.

C.S. Lewis describes Christian forgiveness this way, “To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you. This is hard…how can we do it? Only, I think, by remembering where we stand, by meaning our words when we say in our prayers each night, ‘forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.’ We are offered forgiveness on no other terms. To refuse it means to refuse God’s mercy for ourselves.”

I must admit that it is hard for me to contemplate the love that the Lord has for me as I realize my own sin and shortcomings. Why does He forgive me so much? How is it that He is able to say to me and you that “as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.” (Psalm 103:12).

I think what can be overwhelming as we contemplate forgiveness is to realize that it is not something that happens in a day or in a moment. I truly believe forgiveness is a process and a spiritual battle. We have to be diligent to continue to forgive as we are offended or as thoughts of someone who has offended us pop into our heads. It is always through the process that God works in us. He has the result in hand but the journey to the result is what conforms us into the image of Jesus Christ. The Christian life is a transformation that happens day by day. The big "a-ha" moments that we experience are really just a composite of our continual yielding to the Holy Spirit as “God works in us both to will and to do for His good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:13)

I also believe unforgiveness, which eventually turns into bitterness, is one of the devil’s greatest strategies for nullifying our service. It is impossible to serve the Lord and have a fruitful ministry with seeds of unforgiveness in our hearts. But so often we feel justified in our anger and hurt but those feelings are only turned into forgiveness as we come to the cross. At the core a Christian is a lover of Christ and His cross. This fact alone is generally repulsive to the world who comprehend the meaning of the cross in a variety of ways. Some see it as a symbol of a humiliating execution. Others view it as a picture of a pitiful man who claimed to be God but died as a criminal. For others it represents a denial of all the sensual pleasures they enjoy in life. And some simply perceive it as a piece of jewelry to be displayed around one’s neck. For the Christian, however, the cross is not only the symbol of our salvation, it is the blueprint for our lives. It is at the cross that we understand unconditional love, the true cost of sin, and its ultimate defeat. It is here, at the foot of Calvary, where the ground is level at everyone’s feet that we find the grace to forgive others and nowhere else.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones, the Welsh Protestant minister, preacher, and medical doctor who was influential in the reformed wing of the British evangelical movement in the 20th century, acutely understood this reciprocal nature of forgiveness when he stated, “I say to the glory of God and in utter humility that whenever I see myself before God and realize even something of what my blessed Lord has done for me, I am ready to forgive anybody anything.”

Let this be our mindset also.

Date Setters

It has been hard the last couple of weeks to avoid all the hoopla surrounding May 21, the supposed date for the end of the world to take place according to Christian radio broadcaster Harold Camping. If you are not aware, Camping is the president of Family Radio, a California-based religious broadcasting network that spans more than 150 outlets in the United States as well as a website. Camping uses Bible-based numerology to predict dates for the end of the world. His current end times prediction is that the Rapture will be on May 21, 2011 and that God will completely destroy the Earth and the universe five months later on October 21. He had previously predicted that the Rapture would occur in September 1994.

I am not sure if Camping actually believes what he is propagating or if he is just looking for 15 minutes of fame but the Bible clearly states in Mark 13:32 that no man, not the angels, and not even the Lord Jesus Himself knows the return of God to Earth. Only the Father knows the date.

Of course date setting is nothing new. Many people over the course of history have predicted the Lord’s return to the earth and all of them have been wrong. This is not surprising in lieu of the fact that the Apostle Paul told the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 5:2-3 that the Lord’s return would be sudden, “For you yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so comes as a thief in the night. For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman.” When I read this verse I often think of 9/11 and how that event happened on a random Tuesday morning with no one expecting it or ever thinking it would happen. I believe that is how the Lord’s return will take place.

But I think when people, or more importantly Christians, get caught up with date setting and begin spending hours trying to decipher Bible numerology, they miss the true message of Christianity. The Lord Jesus told us when He departed to preach the gospel to every creature. This is the great commission. The message of the cross has always been and will always be the most important message we ever proclaim. It is the cross that saves, it is the cross that forgives, and it is at the cross that we find mercy and grace.

One day the Lord will indeed judge the earth but right now He is in the business of saving the world. When the Lord does return we do not want to be like the Jews during the period of the great prophet Jeremiah and say, “The harvest is past, The summer is ended, And we are not saved!”

Jesus told us in the Gospel of John to not delay in bringing people to the knowledge of the gospel, “Do you not say, ‘There are still four months and then comes the harvest?’ Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!”

This is our mission. This is our only mission. As the Lord continues to tarry there is still time to share the gospel with others and affect eternal destinies. While I do long for the appearing of the Lord and look forward with hope toward that day when I will see Him face to face, I cannot let that thought distract me from my true purpose as His child.

In many ways, I hope Camping is right and the Lord does appear tomorrow and if He should that still leaves us with 24 hours to proclaim the gospel to others. Live today like the Lord will return tomorrow and share the gospel with others in love. Time is short and the Lord could return at any moment.

"If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation." (Romans 10:9-10)

Divine Justice Questioned

This past week I had the chance to read Rob Bell’s latest book called Love Wins. You can probably infer from the title alone that Bell is a universalist as well as a humanist. His latest book dispels the idea that there is an eternal hell among other things. In a nutshell, it is a declaration that God's love will melt all hearts eventually, and all will be saved. If you want more explicit details on the book I suggest you go to Amazon and read through the 300 plus reviews.

Needless to say, his book has caused quite a stir similar to other his works. But then again, I suppose any book that questions the authenticity of Scripture tends to rustle some feathers. I always find it interesting when an author has such issue with hell because he/she feels the penalty is just too harsh and that a loving God would never put a person in eternal torment. Of course, Jesus spoke more about hell than any other topic and the subject of hell is addressed 162 times in the New Testament alone. Jesus Himself references it 70 times or roughly half of all the times it is mentioned.

What is it exactly that causes us to bristle at the subject of hell? After all, earlier this week, the entire nation celebrated the death of Osama Bin Laden, the founder of al-Qaeda, a militant Qutbist Sunni Islamic organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets. Americans at baseball games and basketball games cheered and chanted “U.S.A.!” “U.S.A.!” In our hearts we felt justice had been served and indeed it was against a man who was on the American Federal Bureau of Investigation's lists of Ten Most Wanted Fugitives and Most Wanted Terrorists for his involvement in bombings and other such atrocities over the years.

As a people, we never have an issue with national justice, civil justice, or personal justice but we do take issue with divine justice, don’t we? Mr. Bell is not alone in his inability to fathom a God that not only demands justice but requires it be satisfied in full. Of course, he has missed the whole message of the cross because it is there that God’s justice and mercy meet in the person of Jesus Christ. It is Jesus Himself that satisfied God’s justice on the cross so that men could be saved, “And He Himself [Jesus] is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the whole world.” (1 John 2:2)

That word “propitiation” is an interesting word as it is somewhat antiquated in today’s world. It is most often translated “substitute” but as I studied the word further, I found this Biblical definition regarding its use throughout Scripture:

“Propitiation is the means that is consistent with God’s character and government to pardon and bless the sinner. The propitiation does not procure God’s love or make Him loving; it only renders it consistent for him to exercise his love toward sinners. In Romans 3:25 and Hebrews 9:5 the word is translated “mercy-seat.” It is the Greek word hilasterion. It is the word employed by the LXX translators in Ex. 25:17 and elsewhere as the equivalent for the Hebrew word kapporeth which means “covering” and is used of the lid of the ark of the covenant (Ex. 25:21; 30:6). This Greek word (hilasterion) came to denote not only the mercy-seat or lid of the ark, but also propitiation or reconciliation by blood. On the great Day of Atonement the high priest carried the blood of the sacrifice he offered for all the people within the veil and sprinkled with it the “mercy-seat,” and so made propitiation. In 1 John 2:2; 4:10, Christ is called the “propitiation for our sins.” Here a different Greek word is used (hilasmos). Christ is “the propitiation,” because by his becoming our substitute and assuming our obligations he expiated our guilt, covered it, by the vicarious punishment which he endured.”

After reading this, the awfulness that is hell melts away in the person of Jesus Christ. Perhaps that is why He taught so much on the subject of hell – to ensure people did not go there. God’s desire as stated in 1 Timothy chapter 2 is that all men would be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.

Unfortunately for Mr. Bell, he likes to interpret Scripture as pliable and versatile (his words) which is what causes his angst and makes him more of a philosopher than a pastor. What is even more tragic is that he causes his readers to miss the magnificence of the gospel message that Jesus Himself so clearly articulated and embodied.

The Christmas Story….Completed

In just a few days we will celebrate Easter Sunday, more than 2,000 years since the first Easter Sunday was observed by the disciples and more than 500 other witnesses. It is this event, the resurrection of our Lord and Savior that is the pinnacle of the Christian faith. It is also this event that makes the birth of the Savior significant for without the resurrection His birth, life, ministry, and death are all rendered meaningless. In fact, the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians chapter 15 that “if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty…we are of all men the most pitiable.”

Perhaps no truer words of the significance of the resurrection were ever spoken. Even the harshest critics of the resurrection of Christ have to admit that if He did indeed rise than death truly holds no power for those that put their faith and trust in Christ for the forgiveness of their sins. In fact, no other world religion offers a Living God. All of their gods are dead in their graves with no power to help their followers either here on earth or in the life to come.

Not too long ago I saw a television program on the rise of the Muslim religion across the world. At one point, they interviewed a Muslim man about the difference between his religion and Christianity. The man said that the two religions are very different not so much in their practice but in their belief regarding salvation. He said that Islam does not offer a personal Savior like Christianity that forgives men for their sins with no effort on their part. He said it is on this basis alone (human achievement vs. grace of God) that the two religions differ greatly. And I would also add that it is this fact that elevates the work of Christ above everyone else.

The Bible tells us the God loved us and died for us, “while we were yet sinners.” (Romans 5:8) Did you catch that? God loved us while we were sinners and at enmity toward Him. I often think that the first question I will ask God when I see Him is, “Why did you love us so much?” It is this very love that compelled him to take off His God-hood (Philippians 2:5-8) and become man in order to provide redemption for mankind – something we could not do on our own.

So, as we approach Easter Sunday and contemplate the resurrection of Jesus, let’s make it a point to share this Good News with others. I just heard the other day that there is talk of changing the name of “Easter” to something else because it is too Christian sounding. Very sad indeed, but not surprising given the state of our nation these days. But no matter the name, we as believers in the One who resurrected know its significance, so go out and proclaim it boldly, always sharing it with others in love.