Dear Editor: Someone Is Trying To Pull The Wool Over Your Eyes

The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy.

They steal from the resources of the local church. They kill the character of spiritual maturity that comes from service and sacrifice and the prayers of faith by teaching others to pray selfishly to a Great Sugar Daddy in the sky who will make their dreams and ambitions come true through self centered praying and positive thinking. They destroy the message of truth: that His grace is sufficient. Our Lord is sufficient. His will is sufficient to bring us whatever peace, joy, and prosperity is available to us. They destroy the hope of heaven by preaching "heaven on earth". They steal paradise from us. Who wants to go to heaven if God will give me all the toys I want right here? They rob us of the joy that comes from being squarely in the center of God’s will. That is where you find peace and prosperity. Mother Teresa was the richest woman alive in her day. I know a college professor and her husband who have the sweetest presence of Christ in their lives; it permeates their home… The entire focus of their lives is to give to God-in service, in tithing to the local church, in hospitality, in finding resources for the needy-everything they do, they do for God. Their lives are one singular act of service and sacrifice. That is life abundantly. A life lived in such a way that heaven is just an extension of how we have experienced Christ on earth is the life He is talking about!

Do you know "life"? Do you want to know "life abundantly"?

Jesus came to offer "life"--one of those one-syllable words, swollen with meaning, that John threaded through his narrative.

Lazarus received that life in an astonishingly literal way,

providing yet another sign of Jesus’ ultimate power.

Jesus, though, made preparations to give up his own life, making the ultimate sacrifice of the good shepherd.

What have you sacrificed for the sake of another person?

Come through the way of Christ. He is the door. Anyone who enters by Him and Him alone will be saved…and put to work according to the will of God…and given the richest retirement plan ever conceived…

That is the song of the Good Shepherd. If it’s calling to you…come to the Master this minute…