Jesus. All About Life.Sample

Reflection

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Jesus promised an abundant life, life to the full. What a significant promise, a life beyond the ordinary or the mundane. This promise is to get you out of bed and into your day.

Yet, many will be skeptical; they may even ask what happened to their promised abundance as their existence seems to be marked by scarcity.

In modern western nations, we misread these verses because we read them through the lens of contemporary capitalist societies. We see abundance in terms of accumulation, profile, and ease. If we have more than most, if we grow our social media platform, if we can live an easy life enjoying our accumulated wealth, that would be abundance.

That is not the abundance Jesus is speaking of. We get a hint of the values of Jesus when Paul writes to the church in Corinth. He says in the end, the key values that will remain will be faith, hope, and love. Jesus’ life was to teach and release faith, hope, and love.

This is not to say that enjoying wealth, profile, or ease is not good. It says that Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection were not to make you materially wealthy but spiritually rich. Even in scarcity and times of challenge, we can have an abundance of faith, hope, and love.

Action point

Pray for fresh eyes and an open heart to see where God has given you abundant faith, hope, and love in the Easter season.

Prayer

Lord, we confess that we have easily fallen for our community values rather than Kingdom values. We have pursued present abundance rather than eternal wealth. Our prayer today is to reflect on the Easter ahead of us, that we have a fresh grasp of the abundance of faith, hope, and love available to us through Jesus.

About the writer

Karl Faase is the CEO of Olive Tree Media, a Christian ministry that has produced documentaries such as Towards Belief, Jesus the Game Changer Seasons 1, 2, and 3, and the new series to be released in 2022, Faith Runs Deep. Karl is the presenter of the Daily Nudge radio spots played on stations across Australia. Karl is married to Jane, the Creative Director of Olive Tree Media, and they have three adult children and five grandchildren.