Today's Devotional Thought
September 03, 2010 by Rachel Piferi
Abundant Living
Are you living an abundant life? And, I don’t mean do you have riches and fame and success. I mean are you living a life full of love and grace and forgiveness and purpose? Are you living to your fullest potential?
The world has its standards of what an abundant life looks like. Someone who is living abundantly in the world’s eyes has a big house, a great career, a full social calendar, exciting vacations, and the perfect family life. They have it all as you might say.
But, that is not what Jesus meant when He talked about abundance. In John 10:10 the Greek word that Jesus uses to describe the type of life that He brings is perisson. This word means “superabundant,??? “superfluous,??? and “overflowing.??? It is far and above what we would expect. When Jesus says that He has come to bring us an abundant life, He means that He comes to bring us more than our wildest dreams. Reminds me of The Message version of Ephesians 3:20, "God can do anything, you know - far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams!"
But, before we begin dreaming of mansions and BMWs and designer purses and skyboxes at our favorite sporting events, we need to consider what Jesus considers to be “life??? if we are even going to begin to imagine what an overflowing life would look like. We can see repeatedly throughout the Bible that our view of what is important in life is not what God views as important. In I Corinthians 1 we are reminded that God “chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong. He chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, so that no one may boast before him??? (v. 27–29). When Jesus is asked what the greatest commandment is, He responds that it is to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and soul and then to love your neighbor as yourself. In this, we see what Jesus’ perspective is on the key to life: love God and love others.
I think we all know that wealth, power, prestige, and accomplishment are not high on God’s list of blessings in this life. While He may bestow some of this on us, His way of blessing us to abundance is with things beyond our worldly tangibles. When God blesses us abundantly, He does it with relationships and love and sense of purpose and grace and joy. And, we can achieve this life of abundance by loving God and serving Him through relationships with others.
I have lived a life of worldly abundance and I can tell you that it is nothing compared to the life of eternal abundance that I now am experiencing. The love and grace of God that fill my days are far more fulfilling than any luxury car, vacation home, or exotic trip that I could buy. And, the joy and love that I feel in my life are far more than I could have ever imagined in my wildest dreams. And, it all started by replacing my pursuit of worldly success with a pursuit of a deep, meaningful relationship with the Lord and serving Him through serving others.
Are you looking for an abundant life? Then simply love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your mind, and all of your soul. And then love those around you. And when you do that, I believe that you will find, like I have, a life that is more abundant than you ever imagined in your wildest dreams.
December