Little Worship Boy! … transforming lives through the work of the Spirit into fully developing followers of Christ

The Abundant Life

Paul calls the New Testament life a walk.  What is the sustenance, the life, of that walk?  It isn't us trying to walk for GOD.  It may look like that on the outside, but we have taken the LAMB of GOD into us!  HE is not only the forgiveness of sins.  HE is also the life within us, from WHOM we make the journey.  We can walk around for years with a sense of forgiveness, but no sense of life.  We have the life in us, but we don't know it.  We try to generate the life ourselves, but we are doomed to failure, because it's impossible for us to generate the life.  GOD is telling us, "I will share MY glory with no man.  Only I can live MY life.  But I will impart the life to you.  I will give you the life.  I will live it through you."

That's why there isn't anything beyond the grace of GOD, completely understood, that is necessary for living the Christian life.

In John 6 JESUS said, "I am the bread of life… Unless you eat the flesh of the SON of MAN and drink HIS blood, you have no life in yourselves.  He who eats MY flesh and drinks MY blood has eternal life."  We have eternal life in us—GOD's life.  It's the life without beginning and without end.  It's the uncreated life.  JESUS is telling us, "I am all a person needs for living the life.  It isn't ME plus something.  It isn't ME plus your prayer life.  It isn't ME plus your Bible study.  It isn't ME plus your good service.  It isn't ME plus the sum of everything you can do, because you will never produce a life that pleases ME.  I am the only life that pleases ME."

Nobody is offended as long as we are down here and GOD is up there, and HE does something for us—that's OK.  But when you start talking about JESUS living HIS life in you, through you, AS YOU, that raises eyebrows.  In John 6, the people were perfectly satisfied with JESUS as long as HE produced bread.  The offense came when HE said HE was the bread.  "How can this MAN give us HIS flesh to eat?" they asked.

JESUS was telling the Jews, "You're doing all of these external things, but there isn't any life in that."  The opposite of life is death.  If we are not operating out of the life, we're operating out of death.  But it doesn't look like death, because often we get results.  Church programs get results.  Our personal programs get results.  On the seen and temporal level we are getting results.  JESUS has a word for people about that: "There's your reward.  You're getting your results.  So there's your reward.  Go ahead with it.  But it isn't of ME.  It is not MY life flowing through You."

Paul revealed the secret of CHRIST in us.  To the Galatians he said, "I live, but no, I don't.  CHRIST lives in me.  It looks like me, but it's CHRIST."  To the Colossians he wrote, "It's CHRIST in you that's your hope of glory."  To the Philippians he proclaimed: "For me, to live is CHRIST."  Who was doing the living?  CHRIST.  But if you looked right at him, who would it look like?  Paul.  Paul illustrated this in 2 Corinthians 5:20: "We are ambassadors for CHRIST, as though GOD were making an appeal through us."  These ambassadors for CHRIST were pleading with the Gentiles.  But who was really pleading?  GOD was making HIS plea through them.  The words and the works came through Paul.  But Paul knew that he wasn't working up this concern for Gentiles.  GOD was in him making that appeal.  It looked like Paul, but it was the indwelling JESUS.

Friends, if you want to discover more about the Abundant Life, read the book called The Rest of the Gospel by Dan Stone and David Gregory Smith!

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