Enjoy Life

Title: Enjoy Life

Text: John 10:9-11

If you’re a Christian, you should be enjoying life. If you are born again, if you have made Jesus Christ your Lord, you should be so satisfied, so joyful, so overflowing with life that you should seem almost ridiculously optimistic to the unbelievers around you. How many people can honestly say that they have met a number of Christians that enjoy life to this capacity? You should expect everyday to be so filled with the goodness of God that others around you watch you and wonder and ask, “How can you be so full of hope when the world is so dark?

That is the kind of question the Early New Testament believers heard all the time. That is why Peter said in I Peter 3:15; “Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason of the hope that is within you.” Peter didn’t say this to the Christians just to tell them to have an answer for everything. He was saying your joy or your hope should be so evident upon your face that you need to tell people why you have such hope. In other words, he wasn’t saying, if you are asked, he was saying when you are asked, be ready to give an answer. Apparently, those first century disciples understood what many long faced, discouraged Christians today do not.

They realized that Jesus truly meant it when He said in John 10:9-10; “I am the Door; anyone who enters in through Me will be saved (will live). He will come in and he will go out (freely), and will find pasture. The thief comes only in order to steal, kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows).” (The Amplified Bible)

These disciples understood that Jesus came to give them life in abundance. That means Jesus wants them to enjoy life. He doesn’t want us to think it is a struggle to serve Him. Some people say that it is such a struggle to serve Jesus and then we wonder why no one will get saved. Why would they want to be saved just to struggle like we do? We need to have a hope that others want.

Most believers can quote these verses, but few fully believe them. They don’t realize if we, as Christians, are not enjoying abundant life we are missing it somewhere. We are not taking hold by faith of what Jesus came to give us. He wants us to have life. If you don’t believe that Jesus came to give us life, then I really believe that you may be in the wrong church. Because we believe that He came to give us hope, life and a future. Not just in heaven, He came to give us a future right here in this life. We need to learn to enjoy life. It is okay to enjoy it. How do we get to the point that we can enjoy life? We must realize that

WE HAVE A GOOD SHEPHERD

“But, Pastor Campbell, you don’t really understand my situation or my circumstances. I have some serious problems. I came from a poor family. I don’t have the opportunities most other people have. My circumstances are real bad.”

It may be true, but according to Jesus, all those things are irrelevant. He said anyone who receives Him, as the Door of salvation becomes a free person. They can come and go and find pasture (or provision) for their spirit, soul and body. They can have abundant life. Notice, Jesus did not say that just certain people, like preachers and highly educated people, or people of a certain colour and a certain social standing could have abundant life, He said anybody that came through that door could have abundant life.

If you are anybody, you qualify. You are free to come and go as the Lord leads you. You are not trapped inside your natural circumstances; you are not locked out of God’s blessings. You have become a free person, and wherever you go, you are going to find pasture. You do not have to depend on someone else to give it to you, you don’t have to look to your employer, you don’t have to look to the government or anybody else. Jesus is your Shepherd and He will lead you and guide you. Correct me if I am wrong, but that is what shepherds do, right? He will provide for you. What you have depends only upon what you are willing to receive from Him.

It is sad to say, but many well-meaning Christians seem more willing to receive what the devil wants to give them than what Jesus has for them. They are constantly embracing devilish gifts like sickness, oppression, and depression because they have been religiously brainwashed to believe that God sent those things to teach us something. God help us, please. God did not give you cancer to teach you something. God did not put you in a car accident in order to teach you something. That is not something a Good Shepherd would do to his sheep.