I Am...the Life!

Let’s finish the rest of John 14:6.  Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, the life...”  He repeated that statement to Martha in John 11:25, “I am the resurrection and the life...”  

Jesus was all about life.  A chapter earlier, while teaching his disciples, he contrasted himself with the thief who comes to steal away our joy, kill and destroy in multiple ways.  “I am come that you might have life, and might have it abundantly.”

Jesus doesn’t just want us to have life, but to experience it in great measure. 

Random thought.  When I was a little girl, my mother used to curtail my eating (usually of junk food) with this statement, “You have had enough, any more would be superfluous.”  I didn’t know what that meant, but I figured it must be A LOT (honestly, I am not even sure she knew what it meant).   Indeed, it did mean A LOT...some synonyms we might understand are: extra, surplus, excessive, profuse, plentiful, more than abundant. 

Ah...more than abundant.  That’s the kind of life Jesus came to give us.  Sadly, I tend to be a glass-half-empty kind of girl.  Sometimes, I fear my focus is entirely on the empty part, instead of the full part of life.  This is, yet another, manipulative method of the thief who comes to steal, kill, and destroy our ability to be grateful. 

Wasn’t that the enemy’s tactics in the Garden of Eden?  Focus on what you can’t have...not what you do have:  a garden full of amazing fruit trees.  Ingrate!  I have begun to realize that I am never more like the enemy of my soul, than when I am ungrateful. 

Jesus has brought me abundant life...Over the last year (actually, since the fall of 2010, when I was writing an “email from Eve” for a breakout chapel), the Lord keeps reminding me that a forgotten discipline is that of developing an attitude of gratitude.  As I do, the reality of this abundant life, seeps through my pores, and into my life!  Attitudes of gratitude are contagious.

(A)  He is THE LIFE  +  (B)  I am BLESSED  =  (C)  An Attitude of Gratitude.