Forty Days Full - An Invitation To Real Life

Day One: Real Life

”The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life and have it to the full.” (John 10:10 NIV)

T he significance of John 10:10 is great because it reveals two things we really need to know. First, it identifies Jesus' purpose for us to have abundant life, and secondly, it reveals a demonic strategy to destroy life. Jesus didn't come just to die so we could meet once a week in His name. He came to bring LIFE! His substitutionary death was necessary so that life could spring up in us. All of mankind was under a death sentence until Jesus resurrected from the dead. And, the kind of life He died to bring us is so much more than your everyday, run-of-the-mill kind of life. In other words, he didn't come just so we could make it to heaven. The kind of life Jesus died for is a super abundant, superior, excessive, pre-eminent, over and above, more than necessary, super added, beyond measure kind of life. These are the adjectives you'll find if you look up the Greek definition of abundant life. I heard Joel Osteen tell this sad story of a man who traveled by boat from Europe to America? He had saved for a long time to get enough money to pay for the voyage. He only had enough to purchase the ticket for the boat ride but had no extra spending money for meals. So he packed a block of cheese and some crackers in his suitcase. He knew he would have to be careful and ration his food during the long boat journey. Every mealtime rather than eating with the rest of the passengers, he’d go off by himself and eat cheese and crackers in his room.