The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

John 10:10 KJV

We pentecostals are perhaps most guilty when it comes to the mutation and misinterpretation of biblical text; One such text is John 10:10 which we too often in our minds & doctrines limit exclusively to mean “Wealth” & “Health”. These may be components of said abundant life, but are NOT the centrepiece. Jesus is!

Jesus in John 14:6 made it perfectly clear that He is ‘The Way’ ‘The Truth’ & ‘The Life’. So if Jesus is life, it follows that abundant life is having Jesus (& Him having you in return) more abundantly!

Lazarus’s death and subsequent progress to abundant living, uniquely potrays the 3 phases of progress a believer in Christ takes to enjoy life to its fullness as Christ intended it for us.

Phase 1: It Begins in Death [ John 11:11-43]

  • Irony of all Irony’s! Lazarus’s 1st step to true abundant life actually began in death!
  • Anyman without Christ is dead! regardless of wether he is physically breathing. Spiritually we were serperated from the Light of Christ, we were dead to divine purpose, we were dead in sin, we were cut off from the Kingdom of God just as much as lazarus was buried away in that cave.
  • According to Romans 5:12 this condition is universal to all men born in flesh. Mary’s lamentation in John 11:39 “Lord, by this time he stinketh: for he hath been dead four days” perfectly describes our soulish conditions outside Jesus.
  • The good news of the gospel is that like Lazarus, whilst we were yet dead and degenerate, God worked sovereignly to bring us to life (Jesus) without our input. In order that we may “show forth His praises” (glorify Him) ….
    [Ref: 2 Thes 2:13, 1 Peter 2:9, Eph 1:4]

    3 definite steps Christ took toward Lazarus (& by extension us)
    i. Identification | “where have ye laid him?“
    God worked to help us recognise our emptyness & void in us
    ii. Prepation & Brokeness |”take ye away the stone“
    God used events to roll away the calluses of wounds and ideologies
    which would make our heats impermeable to His word.
    iii. Sending forth His word to us | “Lazarus come forth“.
    Having primed our hearts, He sent His Living Powerful Word full
    of grace & truth “wale come forth” which brought us out of death
    & sin into Life…ref Eccl 8:4

    Every step of our salvation worked out in phase 1 by GOD through His Son Jesus without need of our works, so we have no reason to boast in ourselves.

Phase 2: From new born babes to maturity…

44 And he that was dead came forth, bound hand and foot with graveclothes: and his face was bound about with a napkin. Jesus saith unto them, Loose him, and let him go.

John 11:44
  • In Phase 2 the dynamics of living our new lives begin to change.
    This time God encourages and requires our input (through our yieldedness, obedience and faith).
  • At first, we are alive, But not fully ‘living’ because despite being alive, we are not fully conscious of who we are in Christ. Bound up as we are in grave clothes.
  • We are alive but our senses are impaired because our face is covered up, so our revelation is limited.
  • We have been set free, yet we only walk in a degree of the freedom appropiated for us in Christ…because our ‘knowledge of truth‘ is shallow. Truth (Revelation) in God’s kingdom is in layers, and how deep we go will impact upon how much freedom we will enjoy.
  • We being new born babes require help and ‘discipleship’ from the mary’s and martha’s positioned in our lives to take of the grave clothes & begin to introduce us to how to walk in the new life we have been given.
  • All these Hindrances and Limitations are personified in the external covering of the grave clothes over our lives.

Loose Him, and Let Him Go!

  • Yet Christ didn’t sacrifice himself to leave us with an ‘Ordinary’-‘half life’..No!. He has a far greater target in mind for us. A life of Dominion, and freedom to enjoy God. Jesus still has a final destination for us in mind, And that destination requires a certain attire (level of maturity) for us to be able to fully partake and function.
  • So next order of business: DELIVERANCE!!!
  • This deliverance may take different forms based on the different natures of entaglement which are unique to each individual.
    (very often with demonic overtones: Luke 8:2)
  • Nevertheless the primary means of true and lasting deliverance is in and by THE WORD!!
  • Psalm 107:20 “He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions”.
  • Christians who want to enjoy total deliverance in their lives so that they can be free to be who Christ has made them to be MUST of a neccestity personally engage the word of God through consecrated and dilligent Holy Spirit led regular study of the word.
    Sadly the curse of busyness and lazyness to engage the word has left a vast majority stranded and stalled in a fireless, powerless, impactless, joyless and lukewarm christian life!!! Too many are like the traveller accosted by thieves (demons and false prophets) lying on the way to Jerusalem wounded. Yet Christ always sends a good samaritan (if we will accept his/her help)

Phase 3: Sitting at the Table with Jesus: Coming into Rest

1 Then Jesus six days before the passover came to Bethany, where Lazarus was, which had been dead, whom he raised from the dead.
2  So they hosted a dinner for Jesus there. Martha served, and Lazarus was among those reclining at the table with Him.
9 Much people of the Jews therefore knew that he was there: and they came not for Jesus’ sake only, but that they might see Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.

John 12:1-2, 9.
  • It can be argued that the whole point of Lazarus’s death and return to life was to be a showcase unto the Jews, that he might be a ‘living testament’ to the goodness of God toward us, the Power of His Christ, and the abundance of his mercies towards us.
  • Lazarus never truly started living life to the full until he was reclining in rest at the table with Jesus in bethany being a living testimony to Christ’s power & Love.
  • Vs 9 of John 12 represented the fulfilment of divine purpose in Lazarus’s life. Everything that happened to Lazarus and through Lazarus was designed to bring him to that table fully rested in Christ and mature (unflapable) in Him.
  • Just as Job’s experience all through chapters 1 – 41 was designed to getting Job to Job 42:5. His place of complete rest where the glory of God could more wholly be manisfested through his life without the veil of his internal fears.
  • 1 Peter 2:9 tells us that the whole reason for our salvation is to show forth God’s praise..But the majority of us grew up with the limited doctrine that being born-again is about making heaven, and not going to Hell..So we live this life of ‘hanging on’ for dear life, enduring our time on earth till heaven comes. But in doing this we miss a key target of GOD’s purpose in our lives: Glorifying His name here on Earth whilst we still live!!!
  • We can safely surmise that the purpose behind everything Jesus did: Deliverance , Healing, Blessings, even enduring hardships when the situation called for it was to glorify God’s name on the earth.
  • Concurrenlty every phase and work Christ carries out in our lives, from resurrecting us, to delivering us from bondage, to leading us through the wilderness of trial for maturity intended testing is ultimately designed for one thing: Preparing us as vessels to bring glory to God’s name here on the earth and in eternity.

Brethren, having been raised from death to life not of our works;

  • We must reject a Christianity without Jesus….
  • We must reject the ease of ‘lukewarm’ and ‘ordinary’ christian living..
  • We must reject the notion that we are primarily saved for ourselves..(to marry, to give birth, to pursue wealth, have a good career, etc..)
  • We must reject the incomplete notion that its all about getting to heaven.
  • We must embrace God’s grace which he has released towards us to bring us into full maturity.
  • We must accept God’s call for us to grow in grace (putting that which we have receieved to work in order to recieve more) and in the knowledge of our Lord.
  • We must accept the call to labour to enter into His rest
  • We must accept that whilst we have been fore-ordained to do good works which glorify His name, it would only be most enjoyable, fulfilling and fruitfull when we do them from the place of His rest, reclining at the table with Him. (Not in our strength & zeal alone, but by His spirit.)

Prayer:

Lord Jesus. Thank you for your gift of life toward me. Thank you for bringing me out of complete obscurity into your marvelous light and into the awesome priviledge of knowing you. Today Lord if my journey from the grave to the table has stalled, kick start it for me again in Jesus name.

Holy Spiri, I recommit myelf to this journey you have planned for me in your infinite wisdom, and i tap into divine grace to enter into God’s rest succesfully in Jesus name. I prophesy that my life will indeed bring maximum glory to your name on the earth and also in eternity.

Thank you my Lord and Savour.