Andy & Elisha: The Abundant Life

As I was praying, I saw a woman in my mind walking, searching, looking, constantly seeking an illusive something around each new corner and turn. In my mind, I followed her, wondering, "What is she looking for?" She didn't look desperate. She wasn't hurrying. But she kept searching for something.

I prayed, "God, what is she looking for?" And I heard His voice in my mind, "The Abundant Life."

"Aren't we all looking for that?" I replied. "Isn't that the search of my heart too?"

"Yes, but you know the way." And as clear as day, scripture flew into my mind. Whoever wants to gain his life must lose it. Whoever wants to live must die. Whoever wants to be greatest must become least of all. Those words sang into my heart and wove into a beautiful tapestry of losing to gain, dying to live, giving of self to receive joy and peace and purpose and beauty and glory.

You see, we all hunger for the abundant life. We long for it. You long for it. I long for it. The world longs for it. Even creation desires to live abundantly - producing fruit and life and breath for all the world to partake of. We seek the abundant life in caring for ourselves, in our jobs, in our ministries, in our families. We constantly are tweaking elements of our lives hoping that they will satisfy the searching of our souls for purpose, for meaning, for abundant living.

And yet Jesus makes the way clear, narrow, but oh so clear. The abundant life is found in giving your life away. Giving your life away with no expectations, no thoughts of reciprocation, no desire for acknowledgement or praise or thanks. How many times are we motivated by the praise of others? By some personal reward or gain? By the hope that they'll reciprocate our love? How many times do we give generously knowing that we cannot be repaid? How long will we continue to reach out in relationship to others with no reciprocation? How many times we will do that chore that no one notices without a desire to be acknowledge or thanked? How long we will persevere in putting another person's good before our own? How many times will we personally suffer for the good of another without acknowledgement or end in sight?

Dear friends, the world will tell you that these are the ways to burn out, to run out, to lose your life. The world will tell you to take care of yourself, to put your oxygen mask on first, to do what you need for yourself before you can care for others.

But the Bible will tell you to die. The Bible will lead you down a different path.

Is it any wonder that we look around America and see very few people living a spiritually abundant life? Is it any wonder that we are all so often searching for purpose and meaning and joy and hope when we are listening to counsel that tells us to care for ourselves first?

Jesus spent His life pouring out constantly and the only time in scripture you see Him taking for Himself is when He went back to His Father in prayer. And even then, His compassion for others interrupts even His time in prayer with the Father to give and to serve and love and to heal. The end of His life on earth is the beautiful finale of His life lived for others in that He gave His physical life away on a cross to for our sakes! Are we also willing to give our earthly lives away for others' sake?

Jesus says in Luke 14, "When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you..."

You will be blessed because they cannot repay you.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus describes the people who are truly blessed and they aren't the people who are rich or comfortable or have a wonderful marriage or parents or family or friends. Those are the things Americans say we are blessed for having, but Jesus describes a blessed person entirely differently:

"He said:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be filled.
Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
    for they will see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

Would you like these kinds of blessings? Would you like to describe your life as one of mourning, meekness, and poorness in spirit? He includes the merciful, those who hunger for righteousness, the peacemakers, but we can't ignore that He sees the world and blessing very differently than how we've been raised to see blessing.

The abundant life isn't found in having more fill-in-the-blank, becoming more fill-in-the-blank, or doing more fill-in-the-blank. The abundant life is found in being willing to suffer and give your life for the sake of another, without expectation and without self-motivation of any kind.

C.S. Lewis said, "Die before you die, there is no chance after."

You see, baptism is a picture of us surrendering our earthly life and will and attempts to live for ourselves so that these earthly lives will "die before we die," so that we can experience the resurrection life of Jesus Christ here on earth, just as it is in heaven.

I think CS Lewis is one of my favorite authors and theologians precisely because he understood the fundamental path to the abundant life - Jesus. If we call ourselves Christians, the Bible says that we will walk as He walked. Our lives should be a reflection of His life and it is only in this beautiful swap, my life for His life, that we even taste the beauty of the abundant life.

CS Lewis describes it as this:

"The more we let God take us over, the more truly ourselves we become – because He made us. He invented us. He invented all the different people that you and I were intended to be. . .It is when I turn to Christ, when I give up myself to His personality, that I first begin to have a real personality of my own.”

Apart from Christ and His life in me, I'm a broken imitation of the fullness that Christ intended for my life. It is only in Him and in giving up my life and my desires and myself for His sake, His kingdom, and others that we can begin to find who we really are. What is more beautiful than seeing a person in all their God-given beauty living out who God intended them to be and what He intended them to do? You see every element of their life shine with the reflected glory of God. But I can assure you that they did not find that life without losing another.

We cannot find the abundant life in Christ without losing our earthly life and rights. We can try to imitate the abundant life - we see this everywhere in the world. But at the end of the day, when lie on our beds or come to the end of our lives, we will be left with only our Judge and our consciences, and a life lived for self will never be sufficient to satisfy either.

A life lived for Christ and others is the only thing we can present to Christ when we come to die. We must give our earthly lives up to Him now to experience the beauty of the abundant life here and in the hereafter.

I pray that we all would die so that we might live.

“This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends."

This is the secret, Christ in you, living through you, loving others and giving you the strength to lay down your life for Him and the world. Right before this verse in John 15, Jesus speaks about living in Him and letting Him live His life out through you and he ends that portion with these words:

"These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full."

Do you want joy that overflows because you are so filled to the brim with it? Give your life away. You won't regret it. I promise. Because you will find a new life far richer in joy and hope than you can possibly imagine.

Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven being like a man who finds a pearl of great value and sells everything he owns to obtain that pearl. My hope is that we have the wisdom to do the same and give our earthly lives to receive a heavenly life that can never be taken from us.