Annie
Scriptures: John 10:10 Matthew 16:24-25 Ephesians 2:1-10
“Life in all its fulness” As I read those words in John’s gospel, the realisation that the beginning of the verse is the only alternative to fulness of life, dawned on me. Existing in this world involves either believing the lies and deceit of the one who comes to steal, kill and destroy, or believing the One who is the Truth. There is no other choice. For us to live a life that is as abundantly full as Christ would have us live, we have to stop listening to the lies of death and hell, and see the laser beam of Truth and Life who walked among us, who sacrificed all so that we may truly have fulness of Life.
Have you ever seen an entire paddock of sunflowers in full bloom? The whole image simply exudes wonderful, abundant life. As the blooms turn their faces to follow the path of the sun across the sky, they feel the warmth, their petals spread to absorb every possible iota of this elixir. This is life in all its fulness.
Consider a one day old foal, on its spindly legs suddenly realising that it can run, that it can kick up its hooves and tear off around the paddock. Again, creation experiencing the exuberance of life in all its fulness, unfettered by the doubts of lies and deceit.
As human beings we have the amazing gift of intelligence, logic and reasoning which is such a blessing, but the enemy knows this and exploits it with his half truths and almost truth. He blinds us by presenting information, supposed evidence that takes our eyes off our Lord and Saviour and causes us to ignore who we are in Him, and what we have in Him. Our only way to counteract these lies and almost truths is to know without a shadow of doubt that we belong to Christ and to daily remind ourselves and give thanks to our Abba Father for this.
So often we hear the exhortation to get the most out of every day, but this exhortation can often send us scurrying around trying to achieve this in so many directions that we end up exhausted and spent. People search for fulness of life in their career, their hobbies, sport and a whole raft of trying to “keep up with the Jones”. And Jesus saw this even in the days when He walked among humankind, knowing that none of this would lead to the abundant Life He could, and would, offer us all.
Then, the complete opposite is proffered by the enemy, as one of the almost truths he uses to fool us. He offers us a form of religion that would have us with our eyes so firmly fixed on ourselves and all that we have to do to earn this abundant life, that we lose sight of the salvation Christ bought so dearly for us. Many years ago, I was fooled into being so bound up in “dying to self” that I almost lost sight of Who is the only way to achieve this humanly impossible goal. The first step to dying to self is to know, and actively believe, that we are saved by Grace, loved by our Saviour and our life is hidden with Christ in God. That is the basis for then relinquishing ourselves into His safe hands. We belong to God, we are precious in His sight and He loves us beyond measure.
In our quest to find “life in all its fulness”, our primary objective has to be to draw closer to God each day, to see Jesus as the glorious, vanquishing Victor that He already is and to just let go of our earthly striving. Beginning at the very beginning, we need to recognise that Jesus is the only Way, the only Truth and the only Life, and the enemy, who has brief power in this world today, is always a liar, a thief and a murderer.
Prayer: Abba Father, may we diligently ask, seek and knock, knowing that You always hear us, that You are always ready to lead us into the abundance of Your fulness of Life, as we believe and follow wherever You lead us.