47. Life Abundantly
Covering John 8:31 through Chapter 10:
John presented a God of abundance just as Paul did, and just as all of Scripture does. Abundance of material things is not excluded or contrary to God; it’s just low on the list of importance. Paul defined material abundance as everything you need to accomplish what God has given you to accomplish.
Since life is the knowledge of God, the first thing on anyone’s list must be an abundance of the knowledge of God. And that comes, of course, through the abundance of knowing the Lord Jesus as every Word fulfilled – which Paul calls “the riches of His Word.” The third abundance is Love among us abounding more and more, the abundance of fellowship in Community.
Abundance. Abundance itself is an absolute quality of God the Father. In fact, God is abundance, for He never does anything except that He goes all out, over and above, more than enough. John said that the leftovers from the little boy’s lunch were “abundantly above what had been eaten.” Life and abundance are two words that must always go together. You cannot say “abundance” except as a description, first, of LIFE. And you cannot say “Life” except knowing that Life out from God must be abundant.
Here is God’s simple equation. “If anyone thirsts, let Him come to ME, Jesus, and drink. The one who believes into ME, out from his belly flows RIVERS of Living Water.” Jesus is enough for us, Rivers of Spirit flowing out is the portion of LIFE that is “more than enough.”
Jesus for Real. Jesus in Person, living for real inside our hearts, having already entered into full union with us first, now our Companion and our Life, is always and only the Source. And we know such Life only as we acknowledge Him as He is. Thus, as Paul said, the first thing the Spirit does, upwelling within us to flow out, is to place into our mouths and hearts, “Yes, Lord Jesus,” teaching us to give thanks inside of all.
I am always ready to believe the best about anyone who communicates with me concerning what I share. But I have been burned in that readiness, more than once. And it’s not because I did not know what is required. What is required? Those words, readily upon your lips, out from your heart, “Yes, Lord Jesus.” – Acknowledge Jesus as “My Lord.”
Truth and Made Free. (Chapter 8) 31 Therefore Jesus said to those Judeans who believed in Him, • “If you abide and continue inside of My word, you are truly My disciples. • 32 You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” – 34 Everyone who sins, doing that which is disconnected from God, is a slave of sin. 35 Now, the slave does not remain in the house into the age, but only a son remains into the age. • 35 If the Son makes you free, you will be truly free.”
There is a lot in these verses. “Abide inside of My Word” is a subset of “Abide inside of Me,” and thus Ruling Verse 10. But then we need two definitions, actually, a definition of Truth and then a definition of “made free.” Jesus is wiser than I am, for He immediately contends with those who come to Him to “believe in” Him.
Keep My Word. Jesus said, “Continue inside of My word.” “Keep My Word,” however, is God’s confrontation against every human who comes close to Jesus to “believe in” Him. It’s purpose is to clarify Truth. Jesus is about to say to these people – and to all who approach Him, that they are liars. Anyone who says, “I will keep Your word” or even, “I will try to keep Your word,” is a LIAR. Truth is not inside of them.
Before we can write the Gospel Comments we must bring in the next bulleted verse in Chapter 8. • 44 You are of the “father,” the devil, and the desires of your father you choose to do. He was a murderer right from the start. He does not stay inside the truth, for there is no truth inside of him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks out from his own person; for he is a liar and the father of lies.
All Things Are Personal. We know everything, now, through the Flow of Gospel Word, for everything John writes is related from one to the next. Looking through the Gospel Verses yet ahead in this lesson, it is clear that we cannot separate John 8 and 9 from John 10.
Here is our primary verse, John 10:10. – The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I came that they might possess life and possess it abundantly, excessively – and beyond all expectation.
Truth is set against lies, freedom against slavery, Life against murder, abundance against thievery, but most of all, Jesus against Satan. Nothing exists that is not personal. Truth, freedom, life, and abundance are all personal; His name is Jesus. Lying, slavery, murder, and thievery are just as personal, for each human and out from the heavens.
Exposing Dishonesty. The one who says, “Jesus, I will keep Your word,” is a liar and the truth is not inside of him. An honest heart will ponder for a little while and then, stricken with horror, will fall on his face, saying, “Jesus, Master, You alone must be my Source, somehow, for I cannot keep Your word.” But even worse is the one who says, “You must do what Jesus says,” because the implication inside those words is the greatest deceit. That one is saying, “I always do what Jesus says.” They will claim that’s not what they mean, but even that claim is false. It is a bottomless pit, for there is no desire in them to know the Father.
Jesus has already stated the Tree of Life in John 6. “You inside of Me and I inside of you.” Big Person – little person – Big Person. Jesus – me – Jesus. Come to ME, Jesus, to possess LIFE!
Confidence in Jesus. Ruling Verse 10: The One who sustains us every moment is inside of us. And we are inside of the One out from whom we come. This One is the All-speaking of God, every Word God speaks. He is always personal; His name is Jesus.
Definition: Truth is always Personal. We acknowledge a Personal Jesus inside of us, that, apart from Him, we can do nothing. When Jesus says, “Keep My Word,” we look straight into Him, that He is all Word fulfilled inside of us.
Ruling Verse 7: We are made to be filled with a Personal Jesus who is every Word God speaks already made complete. When we dwell inside of His union with us, He now part of us, and we now part of Him, we know freedom as cannot be known any other way. It is our confidence in Jesus inside that makes us free.
Defining Satan and Evil. Satan said that God knows evil. Christianity is convinced that he spoke the truth, even to Jerome inserting “of Us” falsely into the Bible text out from the liar. Some even say that Satan is evil by substance, even the “left hand” of God, or the “evil side” of a God who knows evil. “Did God indeed say” is the first lie, and “like God, knowing good and evil,” is murder. That is, accusing God of knowing evil is murder. And all of it is personal only. One person refusing Jesus this moment, NOTHING more.
Definition: To lie, one must place in question Jesus as Word sustaining all. To murder is to place upon God in the hearing of humans, the accusation that God knows evil. Both the lie and the murder are also personal; one person, initially Satan, refusing Jesus this moment, NOTHING more.
Experience My Word. • 51 It is as I say to you. If anyone keeps, guards, and watches over My word, he shall never gaze upon or experience death even into the age.
The Life of the Kingdom, the result of Word, is the defeat of death in all of its forms. Death is always not knowing God first. Physical death, the splitting apart of our spirit and our physic, heaven and earth, is only a symptom of not knowing God. Jesus’ words are out from a common theme. Gaze upon and experience My Word (that is, Me) and experience Life, or – gaze upon and experience the outworkings of death.
Kingdom: Kingdom is every next step coming out from union with a Personal Jesus inside of us. As we see Him alone in ongoing experience, we participate in the Life of the Kingdom, that is, the elimination of death in all of its forms.
Purpose Always Rules. (Chapter 9) • 3 Jesus answered, “Neither this man sinned, nor his parents, but that the works of God should be made visible inside of him. 4 It is necessary for us to work the works of the One who sent Me while it is day. Night is coming when no one is able to work. 5 While I am in the world, I am the light of the world-cosmos.”
Do our lives in this world come out from sin? Or do they come out from a Personal Jesus every moment? One of these two will always be BIG and the other will always be small. From whence do you come?
Ruling Verse 1: Those who love God see God in all, that God reveals Himself through every human circumstance. We give thanks inside of and for the sake of all things, synergeoing with God-Love, making all difficulties the Father’s glory.
The Soil of the Ground. • 6 Having said these things, He spat on the ground and made clay out of the spittle and applied the clay to the blind man’s eyes. 7 And He said to him, “Go, wash in the pool of Siloam (which means Sent). The man went in response, and washed, and returned seeing.
We are seeing the entrance of Jesus as water and as Word, as Spirit and as Life, entering into, being planted, inside of earth, the clay of the ground, our hearts, pictured all through John’s gospel. The telling point is John 12:24, planted in the earth, but the most glorious is the Blood and Water flowing out of His side into the dirt of the ground, becoming the Church. Yet this picture of immense Glory and overflowing goodness and joy continues to be placed, by John and by Jesus, into the confrontation between God and each individual, that is, “me.”
Blindness versus Seeing. • 39 And Jesus said, “I came into this world for judgment, that those who do not see, might see, and that those who see, might become blind.” 40 The Pharisees who were with Him heard these things, and they said to Him, “Are we also blind?” 41 Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would not possess sin; Since you say, ‘We see,’ however, your sin and disconnection from God remains.”
Jesus’ statement, “I am the Resurrection and the Life” is in Chapter 11, and in the next lesson titled, “Planted in the Earth.” We are seeing a wondrous connection being woven. – What do you see? Truth – lie. Life – death. Truth and lie are personal; Life and death are personal. I am very interested in not experiencing death, as Jesus said, but rather, my physic swallowed up by life.
What Do We See? Let’s place the meaning of John 9 into the biggest possible context, for the ruling thoughts of God cause all flow of Word.
Ruling Verse 2: We have this Treasure in earthen vessels (2 Corinthians 4:7). Through John’s gospel, the Spirit is weaving into the things Jesus says and does, the entrance of Word into vessels of clay. This will culminate in Jesus as Word planted in our hearts of flesh, that we might see and know God.
Covenant: Human effort always fails to connect with God, yet always puffs itself up as “true seeing.” Jesus alone connects us with God. Gaining sight is seeing Jesus in all.
Ruling Verse 3: What do we see? In every next step, how do we call everything? The Spirit alone causes us to see the Lord Jesus in every next circumstance. We live inside that Flow.
He Calls Me by Name. (Chapter 10) 2 The one who enters in through the door, however, is the shepherd of the sheep. • 3 To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. • 4 When he has brought out all who are his own, he goes before them and the sheep follow him, because they perceive his voice. 5 They will not follow a stranger, however, but will flee away from him, because they do not recognize the voice of strangers.”
Jesus continues with the contention, but not with us, for He calls us by name, and we follow Him. Jesus is the Shepherd who enters our door. He leads us out into every next step shared with God (Life). Every step, then, is personal to both Jesus and each one of us. Jesus – Daniel. Daniel – Jesus. Put your own name in the blank. He calls me by my name and I follow Him.
Every Next Step. People follow CONFIDENCE. Yet human confidence is always in self and neither sees the real goal nor the way there.
Covenant: There is no Life except there be an immediate and continual connection between Jesus in Person and “me” by name. We acknowledge His speaking of Life into us, and we see His Word fulfilled.
Definition: Strangers come in many guises, yet so also do those walking with us, in whose faces we see Jesus. The difference between stranger and fellow sheep is a concern that stays with John, which he will develop more fully in his letters.
Kingdom: The Kingdom is every next step shared with God, the outward movement of Life. Jesus leads us out into all the knowledge of God. He takes us with the Father.
Placing the Rule. • I am the Door of the sheep. 8 All who ever came before Me were thieves by stealth and robbers by violence, but the sheep did not hear them. • 9 I am the Door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be safe; he will go in and out and will find pasture and increase. • 10 The thief does not come except to steal, to kill, and to destroy. I came that they might possess life and possess it abundantly, excessively – and beyond all expectation.
First, God has placed the metaphor of the Tabernacle of Moses above all other similar metaphors, that it might be the Rule. Jesus as the Door, then, is all three entrances, Gate, Door, and Veil. He is also the Way all the way through. Thus to enter through Jesus is to live INSIDE OF God, inside of All Devotion, inside of knowing the Father sharing all with us.
Defining the Thief. It’s easy for the thief to steal, to kill, and to destroy; all he has to do is to prevent the knowledge of a Life shared with God. In his bag, he has every alternative he needs, including Bible words, and he shapes each offer to fit each individual personally.
Jesus – me by name – into Father now. We flee any other voice.
Ruling Verse 6: We hear one Voice, Jesus inside, calling our name personally and taking us into all that is Father now. We flee any other voice, no matter how confident or “Biblical.”
Definition: Every trick of the thief is to prevent the knowledge of God now through Jesus. All death and loss then follows. Just as Jesus becomes personal to us, so the thief fits his alternatives to each person. “Go to heaven someday.” “Jesus is far above you.” “God is against you.” “See yourself, how much of a failure you are.” “You are superior to all those fleshy people.”
Defining Abundant Life. Jesus is the Entrance and the Way – but it is into God that He leads us every step. Thus LIFE is a direct connection with God through Jesus inside every moment of our lives. Life is knowing God, that’s why Life is forever, for there is no end.
Life: Jesus is the Entrance and the Way – but it is into God that He leads us every step. Thus LIFE is a direct connection with God through Jesus inside every moment of our lives. Life is knowing God, that’s why Life is forever, for there is no end.
Ruling Verse 3: Life that is God is Abundance, always an overflow, always more than is needed now given to others. The Parable of the Exuberant Father, Luke 15:11-32, shows us a God of Abundance, always giving all with joy, always ready to celebrate, always ready to give. To share Life with such a God every moment is to know and to be Rivers of Giving.
The Shepherd as the Lamb. • 11 I am the good and beautiful Shepherd. The good shepherd sets forth his soul for the sake of the sheep. – • 14 I am the good Shepherd; I know My own, and I am known by Mine. 15 As the Father knows Me, I also know the Father, and I set forth my soul for the sheep. • 16 I also have other sheep which are not of this fold; it is necessary for Me to bring those also; they will hear My voice, and there will be one flock with one Shepherd.
We will not define “set forth soul” until the next gospel verse. But let’s lay a complete foundation first out from these verses. “Set forth soul” is also “the Lamb slain and now alive.” It is propitiation, the living work of joining together in every moment and step. Jesus, our Shepherd, is one of us, the Lamb.
Just Like Jesus. Look at the layout in verses 11 & 14. “Set forth soul” is on either side of a matched pair. “I know you and you know Me” inside of “the Father knows Me and I know the Father.” Thus Jesus is setting before us our being just like Him in knowing the Father – Symmorphy – John 14:20 – Life.
Definition: Jesus is both Shepherd and Lamb, the One who guides us into knowing the Father, and the One who gives Himself always that we might be joined with the Father.
Covenant: Jesus knowing you and you Jesus is found entirely inside of Jesus knowing the Father and being known by Him.
The Form for God through Jesus: Jesus is referring directly to the gospel that He will speak through Paul, that the Church is former Judeans and former non-Judeans as one together.
Set Forth Soul. • 17 Because I do this, the Father loves Me, because I set forth my soul, that I might actively take it back again. 18 No one removes it from Me, but I set it forth of Myself. I have the authority to set it forth, and I have the authority to actively take it back again. This full completion I received from My Father.”
None of this can be known except we enter with David into the soul of Jesus upon the cross. And inside of Jesus there, we behold something so wondrous, for this Jesus says to us, “Be part of Me.” Yet inside of Jesus’ Soul, sharing in His agony, joining our brethren with God in our hearts, together with Him, we do not leave off the focus of LIFE – our physical bodies swallowed up by Life, which Jesus and John weave together.
And We Also. Our new understanding of the Ruling Thoughts of God enables us to see that 1 John 3:16 is always bubbling up, always sneaking in, always contending with our hearts.
Definition: The meaning of a “set forth soul” is found in Psalm 22, Jesus joining us with God inside His human agony.
Ruling Verse 8: By this we know Love in that Jesus set forth His soul for us, for our sakes; and we also are committed to setting forth our souls for the sake of our brothers and sisters.
Kingdom: Covenant is Jesus giving Himself, but Kingdom is Jesus “taking His soul back again,” now shared with us. Kingdom includes the physical part of our form swallowed up by Resurrection Life, but much more, for it also includes our inheritance in all those precious people now given to us.
Into the Most Devoted. • 27 My sheep hear My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. 28 I give them age-unfolding life as well, and they shall never perish into the age. Never will anyone seize them out of My hand. • 29 My Father who has given them to Me is greater than all, and no one is able to seize them out of the Father’s hand. 30 The Father and I are one.”
Jesus is bringing Keep and Make Devoted into the picture, whom He will release in the prayer that births the Kingdom. The Spirit is showing us that this “place” into which Jesus leads us is the Mercy Seat inside the Most Devoted, inside of God, wherein the energeoing of Blood, the essence of a “set-forth-soul,” now goes out from us into all creation. To imagine that we are not inside of God, one with the Father as Jesus is, is to live by the voice of the stranger.
Symmorphosed – Sharing All. No metaphor is spoken into a vacuum, nor can it stand on its own. All other metaphors are found inside of two, the Tabernacle of Moses and the reproduction of Life, always together. And every Word in the Bible places us with Jesus inside of God, symmorphosed, sharing the same form.
Definition: All metaphors used by the Spirit of God in the Bible are found inside of two, the Tabernacle of Moses and the reproduction of Life, always together. Jesus as Way and Door is as the Tabernacle, our Way into all of God.
Definition: Jesus and the Father share a Symmorphic relationship together. To be one with God is to be a human filled with all of God in utter trust.
Ruling Verse 1: Every Word in the Bible places us with Jesus inside of God, symmorphosed, sharing the same form.
The Foundation of Life. 37 If I do not do the works of My Father, do not believe Me. • 38 But if I do those works, even if you do not believe Me, believe the works, so that you may know… that the Father is inside of Me and I am inside of the Father.”
The only thing that is real is that which comes out from a symmorphic relationship with the Father, into which we are included inside of Jesus. This is the foundation of Life.
Kingdom: Everything outward seen in Jesus testifies entirely of the inward Life that Jesus shares with the Father, Person inside of Person.
Ruling Verse 10: When we KNOW that the Father is inside of Jesus and Jesus inside of the Father, then we also KNOW that we are inside of Jesus and He is inside of us.
Joined by Resurrection. This lesson became a weaving of many things together, and inside of that process, the Spirit gave us the keys to seeing how all the metaphors of God are to be known together. We never take any metaphor as a stand-alone, but we always step back into the larger picture to see how this, sometimes a very different metaphor, fits into the whole.
We are seeing why God pairs plant seed as an equal with human seed as the primary metaphor of the Bible, and then places both into the Mercy Seat inside the Most Devoted. LIFE cannot bring forth LIFE unless it is first planted into the dirt, into the soil of the earth. In the next lesson are the words, “Jesus wept.” The tears of God are given for one thing – a Church brought out from Jesus’ side, a Church of both heaven and earth, joined by Resurrection Life.
Let’s Pray Together. “God, our Father, we know and believe that Jesus, having come into union with us first, has carried us already entirely into You. We know and believe that Jesus, as Your Propitiation, is always joining us with You and You with us, regardless of all difficulties or differences.
“Father, we also know that Jesus has seated us with Himself upon the Throne of Your Mercy, between Kept and Made Devoted, seated upon the Blood of the Covenant, having turned us around inside of You. God, our Father, we know that You share Your Life of Abundance with us in every moment of ours, as the exuberant Father, as the One who weeps over His own, that Your Church might be set free from the lie, the thief, and death itself.
“God, our Father, as we are seated upon Your Mercy, we see Your Church, our fellow believers in every land on earth and throughout all the heavens. We see their hearts; we see the great Value they are to You.
“Father, You have caused us to share all things with Jesus, even in His giving of Himself to You for the sake of others. Inside of You, oh God, and inside of Jesus, we give all the agonies and joys of our human souls to You for the sake of our brethren. Move through our devoted hearts right now, oh God, as Rivers of Living Water, into the knowledge of Your people in power. Show them Your Truth, Jesus their only Life, and set them free into Your knowledge, into age-unfolding Life now.
“We know, Father, that You hear and answer us.”