Abundant Life

Comment by Juan Gilfillan on November 9, 2010 at 1:50pm

I was saved many years ago, but only recently did I discover that there is more, much more to following Jesus than praying, reading the bible, going to church and trying to live a good life. In fact, trying to follow Jesus while living the small and limited life contained in my own thoughts, emotions and perceptions simply made me feel more guilty and isolated.

Jesus came so you and I can have abundant life. Trying to life abundantly simply does not work. Trying means doing things you are not really capable of. Trying to life abundantly is like trying to swim like a fish. Only fishes swim like fish.

For me, the door to abundant life in Jesus opened when I stopped trying. When I realized that I can never attain it. When I understood that I am the the biggest obstacle in the way of living the abundant life. My little world will never be big enough to accommodate the abundant life.

The abundant life is about thinking bigger, loving bigger, living bigger. A lot bigger. So big that my own life becomes insignificant by comparison. This is what Jesus came to show us.

Comment by Dries Cronje on November 18, 2010 at 10:49am

I feel abundantly alive when:

- I feel the energy of life flowing through me,
- I sense that same energy in the trees, plants and animals around me (out in nature), and
- I look at other people and I manage to look past all the labels and judgments that we so easily attach, and I see in them the same life, energy, and nature as I feel in myself.

I am abundantly alive when I feel One with God inside me (http://onenesswithbeing.com) and also One with all of life around me.

Comment by Juan Gilfillan on November 29, 2010 at 11:32am

I woke this morning feeling alive, but not particularly abundantly so. It took some conscious effort on my part to remember that the small, narrowly defined life I had been living for 45 years still lingers in many aspects of my life. This reminds me of a training session I attended recently where the facilitator shared a powerful 4-step process of learning: One starts off being unconsciously incompetent at a new skill, then becoming consciously incompetent. This consciousness creates the need to change and as one acquires the new skill, one becomes consciously competent. The final step is when the new skill is so entrenched that one becomes unconsciously competent, not having to think about doing the new skill, but simply doing it. I want to be unconsciously competent at living abundantly.

Having said that, I think that living abundantly requires a level of awareness and intentionality that can never be replaced by mere good habits. Also, abundant living should require no effort or skill on my part because if it merely required some new skill, some higher level of awareness, or some altered mind-set to achieve abundant living, some people would get right all by themselves.

No, Jesus is abundant life. When he lives in me and through me and I in Him, abundant life is the consequence, the natural result of this intimate connectedness with Him and His.

So, is it a process? Are there steps involved? is it the same for everyone? What do you think?

Comment by Juan Gilfillan on November 29, 2010 at 11:38am

Thanks Dries!
I followed the link to Oneness with Being and will see you there as well. Do you follow VelocityCulture? I can recommend it.

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