A Father's Heart // An Abundant Life in Jesus, Part 2

With all that life throws at us, not to mention our own foibles and quirks, it’s easy to end up with quite a distorted view of what God our Father means when He talks about His blessing in our lives.  What Jesus means when He talks about giving us an abundant life.

 

The Child in the Father’s House

We are chatting together this week on the programme about living out the abundant life that Jesus promised us, a life overflowing with His grace and mercy and love and peace and joy and blessing. By that we don’t always mean abundant finances or complete safety. God has a tendency not to wrap us in cotton-wool but to be with us out there in the middle of life – in the good times and the bad – with His presence, which is what gives us that sense of overflow; that sense of abundance.

It’s funny how most of us, in our heart of hearts, desire a life that’s, well, perfect, blessed in every way: every relationship perfect, finances perfect, home-life perfect, our own sense of self perfect … everything perfect. But life just isn’t like that. In fact, as you and I think back on our lives thus far, chances are that there are very few times, if ever, where we could tick the box in every part of our lives as having been perfect.

And yet somehow, we yearn secretly, even subconsciously, for this time in our lives when everything will be just perfect. And the mere fact that it isn’t can be so disappointing to many. And yet, I come back to the fact that Jesus promised this abundant life, not wrapped away somewhere in cottonwool, but out there in this precarious, sometimes threatening place that we call ‘life’. This is in fact, what He said – beginning at John chapter 10, verse 1:

Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate but climbs in by another way is a thief and a bandit. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.

When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.” Jesus used this figure of speech with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.
So again Jesus said to them, “Look, truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture.

The thief comes only to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

As we saw last week, the life of a shepherd and the lives of the sheep back there in the first century, were indeed, precarious. As the shepherd would take his flock out onto the rocky plateau of Israel, in search of pasture, there were many threats – thieves, wild animals – and it wasn’t unusual for the shepherd to have to defend his sheep; sometimes with his own life.

And interestingly, in that beautiful prayer that Jesus prayed just before He was crucified, He actually said this about you and me, to His Father: John chapter 17, beginning at verse 12:

While I was with them, I protected them in your name that you have given me. I guarded them and not one of them was lost, except the one destined to be lost so that the scripture might be fulfilled.

Verse 15:

I am not asking you to take them out of this world but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.

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