How Good Does God Want Our Life To Be?

Introduction

As I think through the power of God and His ability to impact the lives of humans, the question I am faced with is, how good does God want our life to be? We hear of all these prosperous dreams and expectations, like the one in 1 Corinthians 2:9. Our reading of such passages encourages us to believe, God has an exceptionally great life prepared for us?

But is this so? And if it is, how do we access it? More importantly, why haven’t the masses found this life?

Take for instance John 10:10 “10 A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” The word abundant means to have more than what one would expect or anticipate. It means to have more than enough. More than enough of what? More life!

Well then what does the word “life” mean? It means a condition or state of being alive; especially healthiness, happiness, exuberance, energy, and vitality. Is this the life most Christians have? Perhaps there are many that do. However, there are many that don’t.

Once more, the real problem is the ongoing idea that one’s sin prohibits anyone from placing valuable energy towards the conditions of one’s life. That is, one should not be concerned with the quality of life. Rather, they should spend their time thanking God that their souls are saved though their lives may not be. But again, I am left with the question of whether God cares about our life as much as He cares about our souls?

Isaiah 64:3-7 paints an incredible picture of the aforementioned dilemma.

Isaiah 64:3–7 NLT

3 When you came down long ago, you did awesome deeds beyond our highest expectations. And oh, how the mountains quaked! 4 For since the world began, no ear has heard and no eye has seen a God like you, who works for those who wait for him! 5 You welcome those who gladly do good, who follow godly ways. But you have been very angry with us, for we are not godly. We are constant sinners; how can people like us be saved? 6 We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind. 7 Yet no one calls on your name or pleads with you for mercy. Therefore, you have turned away from us and turned us over to our sins.

It is no doubt that the presence of sin in the life of the nation was a problem. In fact, the entire covenant was based on a law that rendered to the nation consequences for right and wrong living (see Deuteronomy 28). Their sin was the reason for their captivity and the lack of blessings in their life (Ezekiel 39:21-24; 2 Kings 2:7-20). That is, they experienced hardships in life, because they obtained sinfulness in their soul. Here’s the major question, if God has removed the consequences of sin from the life of those that believe, how does the remove of sin’s penalty effect our lives?

What I want us to see tonight is, Scripture teaches that the removal of sin grants the believer the best life he or she could have never had while in sin. My premise tonight is that one could never have a better life while in sin than they will have while in Christ. This is exactly what Jesus taught in John 10:10 “10 A thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I have come so that they may have life and have it in abundance.” He is stating the enemy has been stealing, killing, an destroying. In this text, the devil came in the form of religious leaders. Accordingly, it is clear that the abundant life is only meant for believers and the threat against this abundant life is towards believers, which is why the devil uses religion to take away what God has planned for those who believe.

Therefore, I want to do two things in tonight’s study:

Convince you that your soul and your life is equally important to God.

Demonstrate how this abundant life is to be obtained in accordance to God’s Word and will.

Defining the Abundant Life

As we think about the abundant life, I must caution you to exercise your spiritual maturity here. For, many have assumed the abundant life is filled with material things. We have been studying the church in Corinth and this is the mistake they made—concluding that material/ worldly blessings are the same as spiritual blessings (1 Corinthians 1:26-29). However, I think the problem is a deeper than we may have concluded.

It is not that the kingdom or community of God is not filled with material blessings. Truly, it is! And these blessings matter else Jesus would have never healed and supplied for the material needs of those who followed Him. However, this entire motif of abundant life is based on how a spiritual action that provides both a spiritual and natural consequence.

The mistake that many have made is trying to combine both the spiritual and natural life into one blessing or trying to remove the natural life and make the blessing only spiritual. However, this disregards the shadow of things that were set from the beginning, leaving nothing for Jesus to fulfill. If Jesus is the fulfillment of those things from before, He must grant us the fulfillment and the better of what was foreshadowed.

So then, as some have noted God has given us eternal life. However, eternal life is not the same as abundant life. The word eternal means to life that does not end. But to have abundant life means to have life that overflows. However, it is because of eternal life that we are given abundant life (see John 17:3).

So what is abundant life? What does it look like?

We will always be taken care of (Matthew 6:33, c.f. Acts 2:42-27, Acts 4:32-37)

Financially supportive community of believers- (1 Corinthians 16:1-4)

Healing and deliverance (Acts 5:12-16

Other supporting scriptures:

Philippians 4:19 CSB

And my God will supply all your needs according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

Deuteronomy 28:1–14 CSB

“Now if you faithfully obey the Lord your God and are careful to follow all his commands I am giving you today, the Lord your God will put you far above all the nations of the earth. All these blessings will come and overtake you, because you obey the Lord your God: You will be blessed in the city and blessed in the country. Your offspringB will be blessed, and your land’s produce, and the offspring of your livestock, including the young of your herds and the newborn of your flocks. Your basket and kneading bowl will be blessed. You will be blessed when you come in and blessed when you go out. “The Lord will cause the enemies who rise up against you to be defeated before you. They will march out against you from one direction but flee from you in seven directions. The Lord will grant you a blessing on your barns and on everything you do;C, he will bless you in the land the Lord your God is giving you. The Lord will establish you as his holy people, as he swore to you, if you obey the commands of the Lord your God and walk in his ways. Then all the peoples of the earth will see that you bear the Lord’s name, and they will stand in awe of you. The Lord will make you prosper abundantly with offspring, the offspring of your livestock, and your land’s produce in the land the Lord swore to your ancestors to give you. The Lord will open for you his abundant storehouse, the sky, to give your land rain in its season and to bless all the work of your hands. You will lend to many nations, but you will not borrow. The Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you will only move upward and never downward if you listen to the Lord your God’s commands I am giving you today and are careful to follow them. Do not turn aside to the right or the left from all the things I am commanding you today, and do not follow other gods to worship them.

Exodus 15:26 CSB

He said, “If you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in his sight, pay attention to his commands, and keep all his statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”

Exodus 23:22 CSB

But if you will carefully obey him and do everything I say, then I will be an enemy to your enemies and a foe to your foes.

Matthew 6:33 CSB

But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you.