630 The Paradox of an Abundant Life - John 10:10

Let's talk about the paradox of abundance today. 

I'm Mike Henry Sr. Thank you for joining me on the Follower of One Podcast. I'm the Founder and Chief Troublemaker at https://followerofone.org.  Today, we're in the second week in the middle, on day three on the Marketplace Mission Trip.

And the topic that we talk about on this day is "listening". And I thought it gave me an opportunity to speak about a verse that I haven't covered on the podcast before, but it's a very popular verse. It's John 10:10 from the English Standard Version. It says, "The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." 

And that's Jesus speaking. And He's telling us this difference between what the devil and the world system will do. It will steal and kill and destroy. It's taking things away from us. It's corrupting and destroying things. 

Jesus came that we may have life and have it abundantly. And sometimes you will hear people talk about this.  "God wants you to be wealthy and prosperous." That's not what I'm talking about today. The abundant life ties directly into our daily lesson about listening because listening takes time, paying attention to someone else takes time. Serving other people takes time.

Everything that we do depends on our ability to rely on Jesus.  We have to earn a living. We have responsibilities and tasks that need to be completed. How can we take the time to spend extra time listening to a friend? How can we close our business for a Sunday for a day and still make a profit when we could be open seven days instead of six?

All of these things come from this abundant life that Jesus gives us. The abundant life is not something that we consume. The abundant life is what we give away. We're all measured, not by what we consumed in this life, but by what we gave away. And I want to encourage us today to live abundantly.  Remember that Jesus can make sure that we have the time to do everything He wants.

Therefore, if He wants us to listen to a friend, let's listen. If He wants us to go out of our way to help someone, let's go out of our way to help them. Our job as believers of Jesus is to listen to Him so that His instruction and His plan and His system gets introduced into our world. As we follow Jesus, the kingdom of heaven steps into our workplace.

The kingdom of heaven is what takes over when we can live with this abundance when we can live available to serve other people. You've felt the anxiety of being behind and trying to press to make a deadline. Let's try to learn, to prepare more and live more abundantly to take this abundant life that Jesus gave us and put it to work in the world by giving it away. That's right. We give it away. That's how abundant our life needs to be. Let's give life to others. 

Thank you today for being a marketplace minister. Thanks for listening to this podcast. He has a job for us to do no matter what our workplace occupation is today. Jesus has a purpose for you that exceeds the job that you do. And when you can step into that role, yes, you give a little more, but it puts you on Jesus's program taking his orders. It makes you a follower of Him. 

Thanks so much for being a follower of Jesus. And if you want to join a community of people who are actively trying to follow Him better to then join us at https://community.Followerofone.org. There, you can meet other people with similar occupations and you can also go on your own Marketplace Mission Trip. Thanks very much.