12 Secrets To Living An Abundant Life: 1 Series

I read about Pastor Dan Cale who said he tried to play a computer game his daughter got for Christmas called Roller Coaster Tycoon. In it you build a roller coaster park and try to make a profit. He said “as usual I started playing it without reading the directions (typical guy right). After a bit of failure I finally broke down and read the instruction manual to find out what I was doing wrong and FINALLY - success.”

I thought of how similar this game is to the lives of Christians today. Only after some measure of failure in life do we ask God how to succeed. I want you to know this morning it really bothers me to look around at the lives of God’s people in disarray and so often in despair. So I want to seriously look at a series over the next few weeks entitled 12 secrets for Abundant Living. It’s based on three principles found in God’s word that must be built into our foundation.

1. God has a plan for your life - Jeremiah 29:11

“For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

2. There is a battle going on, right now, for your life - John 10:10 “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.”

3. Too many of God’s people are losing the battle - Marriages are falling apart, children are falling away, finances are in shambles, life sometimes seem too hard.

Matthew 9:36 - “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.”

Now I don’t mean for these to be used as some magic potion - but as principles coming from God’s word which is the very foundation for life. We call it our instruction manual for life.

Would you like to have God’s abundance in every area of your life?

Well let’s see if we can answer 4 of life’s most important questions.

Who are you? What are you? Where are you? What do you really want?

1) Who are you? -When I ask you that question you may say “boy that’s an easy one.” That may seem as easy as falling off a log. But the question really isn’t easy at all.

I am not asking you for your name - that’s easy. I asking who are YOU.

Did you know that most people can’t answer that question because they don’t really know who they are.

We wear so many masks. We want people to think we ARE something or are NOT something.

Often we get lost in the rolls we play and don’t really know who we are anymore.

Life gets easier when you discover who you are and you begin to like you.

What I mean by that is that you begin to see yourself for who you really are, the good and the bad.

When you understand better who you really are you can begin to work out that life.

One of the coolest things to understand is… God knows you - listen to these words in Psalm 139 1-5 “O Lord, You have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar. You scrutinize my path and my lying down, and are intimately acquainted with all my ways. Even before there is a word on my tongue, Behold, O LORD, You know it all. You have enclosed me behind and before, and laid Your hand upon me.”

The first step to an abundant life is figuring out who you are - that means we to ask God a question. “God, since you know me better than I know myself, who am I?” Show me who you made me to be. I need to know both the good and bad. Help me embrace the good and purify the bad for your glory.

Not only do you need to know “Who you are” You need to know…

2) What are you? This question also seems easy on the surface but too many miss it.

The question really is, “What did God make me to be?” Again in Psalm 139 13-16 David declares, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”