The offer is Life

"I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full" (John 10:10). Wow. That's different from saying, "I have come to forgive you. Period." Forgiveness is awesome, but Jesus says here he came to give us life. "I am the bread of life" (John 6:48). "Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him" (John 7:38) The more I looked, the more this whole theme of life jumped off the pages. I mean, it's everywhere.

Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life. (Prov. 4:23)

You have made known to me the path of life. (Ps. 16:11)

In him was life, and that life was the light of men. (John 1:4)

Come to me to have life. (John 5:40)

Tell the people the full message of this new life. (Acts 5:20)

I began to get the feeling of a man robbed. I'm well aware that it's life I need, and it's life I'm looking for. But the offer has gotten "interpreted" by well-meaning people to say, "Oh, well. Yes, of course.....God intends life for you. But that is eternal life, meaning, because of the death of Jesus Christ you can go to heaven when you die." And that's true.....in a way. But it's like saying getting married means, "Because I've given you this ring, you will be taken care of in your retirement." And in the meantime? Isn't there a whole lot more to the relationship in the meantime? (It's in the meantime that we're living out our days, by the way.) Are we just lost at sea? What did Jesus mean when he promised us life? I go back to the source, and what I find is just astounding. I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. (Ps. 27:13)

"I tell you the truth," Jesus said to them, " no one who has left home or wife or brothers or parents or children for the sake of the kingdom of God will fail to receive many times as much in this age and, in the age to come, eternal life." (Luke 18:29-30)

Jesus doesn't locate his offer to us only in some distant future after we've slogged our way through our days here on earth. He talks about a life available in this age.
So does Paul: "Godliness has value for all things, holding promise for both the present life and the life to come" (1Tim 4:8). Our present life and the next.

"Just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glorious power of the Father, now we also may live new lives. (Rom. 6:4)

The glory of God is man fully alive? Now? Hope unbidden rose at the thought that God's intentions toward me might be better than I'd thought. His happiness and my happiness are tied together? My coming fully alive is what he's committed to? That's the offer of Christianity? Wow! I mean, it would make no small difference if we knew-and I mean really knew-that down-deep-in-your-toes kind of knowing that no one and nothing can talk you out of-if we knew that our lives and God's glory were bound together. Things would start looking up. The offer is life. Make no mistake about that. So then.....where is that life? Why is it so rare?

The theif comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10) Have you ever wondered why Jesus married those two statements? Did you know he spoke them at the same time? I mean, he says them in one breath. And he has his reasons. By all means, God intends life for you. But right now that life is opposed. It doesn't just roll in on a tray. There is a theif. He comes to steal and kill and destroy. In other words, yes, the offer is life, but you're going to have to fight for it because there's an Enemy in your life with a different agenda. There is something set against us. We are at war. The world in which we live is a combat zone, a violent clash of kingdoms, a bitter struggle unto the death. You were born into a world at war, and you will live all your days in the midst of a great battle, involving all the forces of heaven and hell and played out here on earth. Many people think the theme of war ends with the Old Testament. Not at all. Jesus says, "I did not come to bring peace, but a sword" (Matt. 10:34)

The birth of Christ was an act of war, an invasion. The Enemy knew it and tried to kill him as a babe (Matt2:13). No pale-faced altar boy, the whole life of Christ is marked by battle and confrontation. He kicks out demons with a stern command. He rebukes a fever, and it leaves Peter's mother-in-law. He rebukes a storm, and it subsides. He confronts the Pharisees time and again to set God's people free from legalism, In a loud voice he wakes Lazarus from the dead. And when he returns, I might point out, Jesus will come mounted on a steed of war, with robe dipped in blood, armed for battle (Rev. 19:11-15)

War is not just one among many themes in the Bible. It is the backdrop for the whole Story, the context of everything else. God is at war. He is trampling out the vineyards where the grapes of wrath are stored. And what is he fighting for? Our freedom and restoration. The glory of God is man fully alive. In the meantime, Paul says, arm yourselves, and the first piece of equipment he urges us to don is the belt of truth (Eph. 6:10-18) We arm ourselves by getting a good, solid grip on our situation, by getting some clarity on the battle over our lives. God's intentions toward us are life. Those intentions are opposed. Forewarned is forearmed, as the saying goes.

Before he promised us life, Jesus warned that a thief would try to steal, kill, and destroy it. You won't understand your life, your won't see clearly what has happened to you or how to live forward from here, unless you see it as a battle. A war against your heart. And you are going to need your whole heart for what's coming next. We don't see things as clearly as we ought to. As we need to. We don't understand what's happening around us or to us or to those we love, and we are practically clueless when it comes to the weight of our own lives and the glory that's being........held back. We don't see clearly because we don't see with the eyes of our heart. I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened. (Eph. 1:18)

Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal. (2 Cor. 4: 16-18)
The first line grabs me by the throat. "Therefore we do not lose heart." Somebody knows how not to lose heart? I'm all ears. For we are losing heart. All of us. Daily. It is the single most unifying quality shared by the human race on the planet at this time. We are losing--or we have already lost heart. That glorious, resilient image of God in us is fading, fading, fading away. And this man claims to know a way out. Now, to appreciate the weight of his words, you need some idea of what his life has been like. He is neither wealthy nor famous; his life has not been sheltered, as the saying goes. But he has seen visions, had encounters, you might say, with something beyond the walls of this world. Ever since then, things have gotten difficult. In his own words he has: been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. Five times I received.....forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen........I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. (2 Cor. 11:23-27) Not to mention that little incident against wild beasts in Ephesus. You get the picture. His life has been hard. It has been war. His vita reads like something out of Amnesty International. Somebody has been trying to shut him up or shut him down. He knows something; he has a secret to tell. So, how Paul--how? How do we not lose heart?

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. (Cor. 4:18)

What? Now that's helpful. "Look at what you cannot see." What can this mean? Remembering that a little humility can take me a long way, I give it another go. This wise old seer is saying that there is a way of looking at life, and that those who discover it are able to live from the heart no matter what. How do we do this? By seeing with the eyes of the heart. "I pray.......that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened" (Eph. 1:18). (Waking the Dead, John Eldredge, p10-23, 2003)

"Children Of God" - Official Music Video

The Sacred Romance

Starting very early, life has taught all of us to ignore and distrust the deepest yearnings of our heart. Life, for the most part, teaches us to suppress our longing and live only in the external world where efficiency and performance are everything. We have learned from parents and peers, at school, at work, and even from our spiritual mentors that something else is wanted from us other than our heart, which is to say, that which is most deeply us. Very seldom are we ever invited to live out of our heart. If we are wanted, we are often wanted for what we can offer functionally. If rich, we are honored for our wealth; if beautiful, for our looks, if intelligent, for our brains. So we learn to offer only those parts of us that are approved, living out a carefully crafted performance to gain acceptance from those who represent life to us.
The true story of every person in this world is not the story you see, the external story. The true story of each person is the journey of his or her heart. Jesus himself knew that if people lived only in the outer story, eventually they would lose track of their inner life, the life of their heart he so much desired to redeem. Indeed, it was to the most religious people of his time that Jesus spoke his strongest warnings about a loss of heart. This longing is the most powerful part of any human personality. It fuels our search for meaning, for wholeness, for a sense of being truly alive. However we may describe this deep desire, it is the most important thing about us, our heart of hearts, the passion of our life. And the voice that calls to us in this place is none other than the voice of God. (Curtis & Eldredge, The Sacred Romance, p6-7, 1997)