Jesus said, “I have come that they may have life, and life more abundantly”. (John 10:10)
So… how many of us are experiencing abundance? How many believers in Jesus are at least full? OK, how about just feeling like we are making it? Overwhelmed? Crushed?
Where is the abundance? If I don’t have it, where is it? Who took it? Can I get it back… if I ever had it?
Too many Christians are wondering today if their faith, if their trust in Jesus, really is adding anything to their life. That is why I have titled the blog “PlusLife”. It is a name that came to me several years ago and I have kept it simmering ever since. It represents to me something that I firmly believe about our faith- we are meant to experience it, enjoy it, and be better because of it.
Experience
The Christian life is a relationship between you and your God. The only way to have a PlusLife is to have something in you that is more than just this life. If the best we ever get is a nice girl, a good car, a comfortable house and a little more than the other guy has got- we don’t really have a PlusLIfe, just the stuff of this life. When God is added to your life, you experience Him. The holy God of heaven cannot encounter your life without it changing you. When you encounter God, you will have an experience! And since God is a good God, full of grace and truth, that experience is a positive thing, a “plus” thing.
Enjoy
1 Timothy 6 17 Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.
Did you catch that- all things to enjoy. God is a great giver. John Ortberg wrote:
God is a God of gratuitous goodness. And He is uncontrollably generous. He is irrationally loving. He is good for no reason at all. He is good just because He loves to give.(John Ortberg, God is Closer than You Think, p 163)
God desires us to not only experience Him, but to enjoy Him. Now that is not unreasonable at all. We want those that we love to enjoy us. We want those that we love to want to spend time with us, laugh with us, and generally want to be around us. If we are going to live a PlusLife, we have to recapture just the pure joy of having a relationship with God. Do you remember what it was like falling in love? That exuberant, almost giddy kind of feeling you had? When was the last time you felt that way toward your God?
Better
No Christian is perfect. No Christian life is perfect. No person who becomes a Christian is promised a perfect life, free of pain, struggle, trials and junk. So if we don’t get a perfect life, what is the point of having a relationship with God? Because we relate to the one who can do something about it? Why do we pray? Is it because it is a nice religious exercise that allows us to get stuff off our chest… or is it because we truly believe that God can do something about it? I am better with God because I have a friend that is not only all powerful and capable of handling all my problems, but is also faithful to me no matter how life goes. I am better because I am not alone, never abandoned, never without hope, never without someone to turn to, and no matter what happens, always having something to look forward to in the end. Someone might say, “that’s just a crutch”. A crutch is something that holds up someone who is wounded… so yea, my faith holds me up, and I am better because of it.
Experience your faith, Enjoy your God and be better because of it- the basics of a PlusLife. I look forward to sharing with you in this blog. The purpose of this blog is to encourage you and to allow us to encourage one another. Jesus may have been a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but He also knew how to get in touch with His Heavenly Father and experience the full life meant for him.
God’s best to you
John
