The Abundant Life

UV 560/10,000 John 10 v 10 The Abundant Life “The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” The purpose of creating trillions of stars is to show the abundance of God. But, the world’s economy is built on the principle of scarcity. We are all born with a scarcity or poverty mentality. It is because the chief thief, Satan stole our faith and trust in the God of abundance. He stole our peace, our inner joy, our spiritual inheritance. He killed our soul in one stroke leaving only the shells, our bodies and minds. He destroyed our sense of hope and our unity as one race created by God. He imprisoned us in emotional prisons of guilt, fear, anxiety, sorrow and pain. Scarcity implies that we need to struggle, we need to enter into conflict if necessary. It imposes on us a spirit of fear, anxiety and insecurity. It makes us ever grasping and rapacious. Whatever we do, we need to know , ‘ What’s in it for me?” Our past, present and future are tense. If we happen to be positive minded, we will have the outlook of the perennial half-filled cup. If we are negative-minded, we will have the perception of life as a perennial half-empty cup. But, Jesus came into the world to restore us to the abundance mentality, to restore us to our spiritual inheritance of abundant blessings or Shalom. He came to bless us in this life as well as for the rest of eternity. He came not to take away or steal but to give and to bless and to multiply. He came not to kill our joy but to give us abundant joy. He came to revive our souls and resuscitate our spirits. He came not to deny us but to affirm us as co-heirs with Him. We become heirs of every promise of God and thereby, we inherit hope. Our hope when fulfilled becomes crystallized into increasing faith and trust. Our faith as it grows becomes agape love or the abundant love of God. Hope, faith and love will fill our lives with abundant grace. Grace will reign in us through righteousness. We are full of assurance and a sense of security. The abundance mentality places on us the responsibility to be generous with our time, attitudes and resources. We must examine ourselves constantly and give up the thieving ways we learnt from the chief thief. Our mouths should not confess words like “ I do not have it” or “ I cannot do it”. We need simultaneously to cling to the abundant mentality and let go of the scarcity mentality that we were formerly conditioned to accept as reality. We must learn to enjoy and share the abundance of spiritual riches, emotional riches, intellectual riches as well as physical riches that our eyes are now opened to. Our outlook is transformed to the perception of the overflowing cup. Prateep V Philip