Reflect the Abundant Life
Read John 10:10
I vividly recall my first
trip to the mission. It was actually a
Christian run shelter for the homeless in an urban downtown area with a sign
out front that read:
The Hands and Heart of Jesus Mission
One could check into the
mission at
I was there to drop off a
donation of blankets, hats, mittens and socks.
I was surprised at how quiet it was and mentioned this to the man at the
desk. He replied, “Well, everyone is at
church right now.” I said, “Wow, that’s
amazing that every single person attends the service you offer; it must be a
very positive experience.” He stated
matter-of-factly: “Well if they don’t go
to church they can’t eat or sleep here.
We take the spiritual needs of these people very seriously.”
I was horrified. Here was a shelter professing to offer the
hands and heart of Jesus, but giving something far different. Can you imagine being hungry and exhausted,
knowing that you had to sit through an obligatory worship service before you
could get food and sleep? How could you focus on Jesus when your stomach was
twisted in hunger pains? More
importantly, how does this attitude and behavior reflect God?
“As water reflects a face, so a person’s heart
reflects the person.”
Proverbs 27:19
From that point I became
determined to be holistic in ministry. I
realized that no matter what I preach, the way I live my life reflects my
truest beliefs, so I became intentional about integrating different parts of
our human make-up into what I preach, what I teach, what I practice and what I
model. I am far from perfect at it on
any given day, but I’d rather strive to make my life and ministry reflect what
I truly believe about God than settle for anything less.
“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they might have life, and life abundant.”
Jesus speaking in John 10:10
Notice that Jesus didn’t say
that He came so that we might have abundant spiritual lives. He came so that we might have life abundant; He
is talking about life in general. Since
the church is not a building but a grouping of individuals let’s look at how
living out the abundant life as individuals can influence the community of
faith.
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Our lives are made up of the
following components:
Let’s look at each of these
individually.
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Jesus came that we might have life and life abundant. How are we living out this abundant life in our PHYSICAL selves?
“Your body is one of your prime sources of guidance, and it also helps create what you need. Take time today to attend to your body in special ways. Make it feel attractive, loveable, respected and appreciated.”
Penney Peirce
Checklist:
_____ Eating healthy foods
_____ Getting
enough exercise
_____ Taking vitamin or
other supplements as needed
_____ Watching
our weight
_____ Scheduling regular checkup’s and procedures recommended by health
professionals
As an overweight lesbian who
is overdue for a teeth cleaning and mammogram, I am not throwing stones at
anyone! Awareness can be the first step
in a healthy direction. We also know, of
course, that there are both long term and short term effects of not caring for
ourselves physically. How we care for
ourselves physically is a direct reflection on our selves and on our
relationship with God.
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Jesus came that we might have life and life abundant. How are we living out this abundant life in
our MENTAL selves?
The saying, “It’s all in
the mind” is very true. Our minds
direct our choices, our attitudes and our actions. No wonder it’s so important to care for our
mental health! My mother used to tell me
that once I got an idea in my head I just couldn’t let it go. She was absolutely correct! I have learned that sometimes these ideas are
healthy and positive and sometimes they are negative and destructive. Whenever I find myself incorporating what Mom
called, “stinkin’ thinkin’” into my thoughts, I pray for God to help me
re-adjust my attitude. I have found
these two things to be true:
“You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.”
Ephesians 4:22-24
How we care for ourselves
mentally is a direct reflection on our selves and on our relationship with God.
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Jesus came that we might have life and life abundant. How are we living this out in our EMOTIONAL selves?
I believe that all emotions are gifts from God; it’s what we do with them that can make a difference in how we reflect our selves and our relationship with God.
I see my emotions as a
temperature gauge that reflects my current state of being. When I feel myself starting to run hot I ask
myself these questions:
Just asking these questions
can be like adding coolant to a hot engine.
Remember, however, our emotions can run hot for positive reasons as well
as for negative reasons.
Some of the hot emotions can
include: anger, joy, hate, love, anguish, and fear.
Some of the cool emotions
can be just as vital to our lives. These
might include:
apathy, relief, peace, reverence, dismay, and gladness.
Of course there are other
emotions that run in between hot and cold!
For those who think that there are basically only three emotions: Happy, Sad, Anger, let me assure you that
there are lots more! Here are some of
the emotions listed in the Psalms 1,2,4,5 and 6:
Delight, anger, fear,
rejection, relief, distress, shame, joy, peace, hate, reverence, deceit,
rebellion, gladness, faintness, agony, anguish, love, sorrow, dismay, disgrace,
exhaustion
Scriptures tell us that some of the emotions Jesus experienced were:
anger, compassion, frustration, betrayal, sadness, patience, abandonment, love,
and concern.
As a quick note before moving on, it is important to state here that
many of our emotions come out of stress.
Our bodies do not know the difference between good stress and bad
stress. Therefore, we should not be surprised that our body reacts the same way
to joyful news as it does to sad and disheartening news.
Our emotions are a powerful force in our lives. It’s important to keep them healthy!
How we handle ourselves emotionally is a direct reflection on our
selves and on our relationship with God.
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Jesus came that we might have life and life abundant. How are we living this out in our SEXUAL
selves?
Growing up I heard two basic
ideas about sex:
Here’s what I came up with
out of those ideas:
Sex is dirty; save it for the one you marry.
God created us to be sexual
beings. There are those who argue that
sex is only for procreation, but here’s my argument: If it’s only for procreation then why did God
make it so enjoyable? After all there
are other systems in our bodies that provide results but aren’t necessarily
pleasurable or stimulating.
The church has been
particularly negative on the subject of sex.
It is the religious who have tried to frighten young people with stories
about hair growing on their palms and self-inflicted blindness, supposedly resulting
from masturbation. It is the church that
has reduced LGBT people to their sexuality.
The scriptures that have been used incorrectly to speak out against
homosexuality all contain sexual references.
“Because of this God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations
for unnatural ones. In the same way the
men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for
one another. Men committed indecent acts
with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their
perversion.”
Romans 1:26-27
Of course is we read back to
discover what “this” is, we learn that this
text is, at least in part, about idol worship and people doing what is
unnatural for them.
We must also remember that
while homosexuals are accused of being abominations and perverts, heterosexuals
are reduced to being “vanilla”, and staying within the bounds of the missionary
position. Neither is true neither is healthy.
I believe that our sexuality
is a gift from God. I believe that God
created a variety of sexual orientations and each is to be revered and
respected. In turn we are to treat our
sexual partners with respect.
Healthy sexuality is
respectful
Healthy sexuality is loving
Healthy sexuality is mutual
“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.”
I Corinthians 6:19-20
How we conduct ourselves
sexually is a direct reflection on our selves and on our relationship with God.
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Jesus
came that we might have life and life abundant.
How are we living this out in our SPIRITUAL selves?
A priest, a rabbi and a minister go fishing; they get into a boat and out onto a lake where they bait their hooks, cast their lines and wait.
After an hour with no luck, the priest stands up,
moves to the side of the boat and crosses himself. With his rod and reel in hand he steps out of
the boat and walks on the water over to a place about fifty feet away. Standing there on the water he casts his line
and immediately has a fish on it!
The rabbi then stands up, moves to the side of the
boat, and says a blessing in Hebrew.
With his rod and reel in hand he steps out of the boat and walks across
the water, with a high-five to the priest as he goes by. About a hundred feet from the boat he casts
his line and immediately has a fish on!
The minister sits there in astonishment as his two
colleagues catch fish after fish.
He has never walked on water, but doesn’t want to
look faithless! So carefully he stands
up, moves to the side of the boat and says a prayer. With his rod and reel in hand he steps out
onto the water and kerSPLASH, down he goes.
He comes up for air sputtering and spitting feeling like a complete
idiot. He climbs back into the boat and
sits there dripping wet. Seeing that the
priest and rabbi are still catching fish, he gets up again and moves to the side
of the boat. He mutters that one word
prayer we all know so well: HELP, and
with his rod and reel in hand he steps out of the boat and onto the water. KerSPLASH, down he goes again. This time as he comes up for air he hears the
rabbi say to the priest, “So do you think we should show him where the rocks
are?”
This is one of my all time
favorite fishing stories, but even more importantly one of my all time favorite
spiritual stories. I believe that
religion and spirituality are different from one another. It is our spiritual lives that connect us to
the Spirit of God. There are tools that
can assist in that connection, but it is the connection itself that makes us
spiritual people. I have learned that
religion can give us the rules, but spirituality is about finding the
“rocks”. Spirituality is deeper and
sometimes we need spiritual direction and guidance to find our way. Religion
tells us the way as a people, but spirituality is about finding our own way as
individuals.
“This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom, but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The one without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to this person and he/she cannot understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person makes judgments about all things, but is not subject to another’s judgments. ‘For who has known the mind of God that he/she may instruct another?’ But we have the mind of Christ.”
I Corinthians 2:13-16
Listed below are some things
that might help you find the “rocks” in order to walk your own personal
spiritual journey:
Jesus came that we might
have life and life abundant. If you want
to know what Jesus believed all you had to do was watch how He lived His life. He was forever
healing those with physical, mental, and emotional needs. He talked about the need to care for
ourselves sexually in a healthy manner rather than degrading our bodies and
thus our spirits. He talked about the
need to put God first in our lives and He modeled for us how to do that. Jesus knew the importance of walking His talk
and that is what made Him so very different from the prophets of that day. Jesus knew the need to live out:
In His actions as well as His
words, Jesus reflected God.
In the same way I believe
that we reflect God by the way we live our lives and care for the physical,
mental, emotional, sexual and spiritual aspects of our lives. If others are watching us today, how are we
reflecting God?
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Let’s go back to something I
said earlier in this study:
Since the church is not a building but a grouping of individuals, let’s look at how living out the abundant life as individuals can influence the community of faith.
It’s this simple: If the individuals are striving to be healthy
reflections of God, then the church will be a healthy reflection of God. How do we encourage individuals to become
healthy and reflect the abundant life?
·
Teach
(workshops, Bible studies, health fairs, special speakers)
·
Preach (creative
sermons)
·
Encourage
(support groups within the church, but also promote and
advertise
appropriate groups outside the church)
·
Practice
(remember, if you don’t practice you can’t get good at something;
practice doesn’t
make perfect, but it’ll make you better)
·
Model (Wherever
and whenever possible, model the abundant life)
Because the best way to reflect the abundant life in Christ is to live it our in our personal lives and then live it out in the life of the church.
.
Can you think of a time in
your life when you had an experience where someone’s actions spoke louder than
their words? What did they think they
were reflecting? What were they actually
reflecting?
How does your care of your
physical, mental, emotional, sexual and spiritual aspects reflect upon your
relationship with your Creator?
Are there any emotions that
were taught to you (as a child or young person) that were bad? If so, what emotions were they and why were
they believed to be bad?
If someone were assigned to
watch you for an entire day, what would your attitudes and behaviors reflect
about your relationship with God?
How does your church promote
healthy living?
What does it reflect about
your church’s relationship with God?
What questions were raised
for you as you went through this particular study?