The Challenge:
Topic: Life, Eternal and Abundant.
Spend a few minutes reading, praying, and meditating on the following verses:
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
John 10:9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. 10 The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.
Challenge: Grab your journal (or start one here: https://www.quiettime.today/journal) and write down what an abundant life for you would look like. Focus on things like health, family, career, finances, your relationships and your faith.
When you are done, mark the ones that will be part of your eternal life. Over the next few days, focus on the ones that have eternal value.
Bonus verse:
Colossians 3:2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.
More information: https://www.quiettime.today/blog/challenge-1
More Information:
Jesus said that He came to give life, and to give it more abundantly. These are two separate things. The first part, Jesus giving us life, means that He is our savior, that because of His sacrifice on the cross where He paid the penalty for our sins, we have receive eternal life as a free gift by His grace through faith.
Romans 6:23 For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
The wages of sin is death. Wages is something you have earned for what you have done. We have all sinned and thus we all earn or deserve death. No exceptions. But God gave us the gift of eternal life. A gift is free. If you have to earn a gift, it is no longer a gift. Our eternal life is what we Christians call our salvation. God gives this salvation for free to anyone who is willing to receive it. And how do we receive it? Through faith.
Ephesians 2:8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, 9 not of works, lest anyone should boast.
So there is nothing that we can do to earn eternal life. All we have to do is put our faith in God and the provision He made for our sins by accepting the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, His son.
John 14 And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, 15 that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life. 16 For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.
Moses lifted up a pole with a serpent when the Israelites had sinned against God by complaining against Him. God sent a bunch of fiery serpents into their camp and anyone who got bitten by them, died. But then God, in His mercy, provided a solution, by having Moses put a bronze serpent on a pole. And people who got bitten by a snake just had to look to God’s provision for their problems, and they got saved. And so it is with us, we just have to look to Jesus on the cross and we are saved from our sins.
This is the first part, this is the eternal life that Jesus came to give. And this is also where a lot (sadly most) of the sermons in Christian churches stop. Every Sunday, we hear that sermons that tell us that we have eternal life because of our faith in Jesus, but we do not hear much about how we can experience the abundant life He came to give. And as a result, we have to make the sad observation that the lives of many Christians are not very different from the lives of their unbelieving neighbors.
So what is the abundant life all about? It is about having an intimate relationship with God, in which we draw near to Him, so that He draws near to us. Our relationship with God is intimate if we know Him, fear Him, love Him, serve Him, listen to Him, pray to Him, obey Him, please Him, and as a result, enjoy Him. The closer we are to God, the more abundant our lives will be, because God is a God who delights in blessing His obedient children.
This theme is clear throughout the whole bible, both in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. The very first words of God to men were a blessing:
Genesis 1:28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
And the last chapter of the Bible, Revelation 22, also contains two blessings:
Revelation 22:7 “Behold, I am coming quickly! Blessed is he who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.” … 14 Blessed are those who do His commandments, that they may have the right to the tree of life, and may enter through the gates into the city.
Contrary to the free gift of our salvation, the blessings of the abundant life are actually conditional upon our obedience. The abundant life is not something we get for free, but it is something we receive for what we have done. It is just like the Israelites in the Old Testament, who did not have to do anything to be saved from Egypt, but who did have to obey God in order to experience the abundant life in the promised land.
The more we focus on things above, and the less we focus on temporarily worldly things, the more abundant our life will be. I cannot summarize it better than Paul, in his letter to the Colossians:
Colossians 3:1 If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. 2 Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth. 3 For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. 4 When Christ who is our life appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory.
5 Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 Because of these things the wrath of God is coming upon the sons of disobedience, 7 in which you yourselves once walked when you lived in them.
8 But now you yourselves are to put off all these: anger, wrath, malice, blasphemy, filthy language out of your mouth. 9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds, 10 and have put on the new man who is renewed in knowledge according to the image of Him who created him, 11 where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circumcised nor uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave nor free, but Christ is all and in all.
12 Therefore, as the elect of God, holy and beloved, put on tender mercies, kindness, humility, meekness, longsuffering; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do. 14 But above all these things put on love, which is the bond of perfection. 15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful. 16 Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. 17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
So this will be the focus of the Quiet Time Abundant Life challenge, how to experience the Abundant Life as a result of intimate relationship with God.
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