A few people in church recently got up to promote a ladies' conference. They were talking about the subject of the conference and I fully expected it to have a Biblical focus since a church was doing the conference.
Wrong assumption.
While I can't recall the announcement verbatim, I will summarize.
Three women of the church got up to make the announcement and they each talked about one aspect of the conference. They talked about the schedule, the food, etc. Finally, they got to the subject of the conference, the theme. They said life can get overwhelming no matter what stage of life you're in and they hope to make these overwhelming times easier to handle.
After all, they said, we don't want our circumstances and life stages to rob us of the abundant life Jesus promised to us in John 10:10.
And there you have it. I've seen this before.(I blogged about it here.) I've seen John 10:10 taken out of context before. Jesus is not promising you an abundant life full of peace and time to reflect and tone down your schedule. He's promising eternal life - abundant life - meaning quantity of life - life that does not end no matter how busy you are - no matter how complicated your stage of life is - no matter what this world throws your way - you, in Christ, have abundant life. Nothing can rob you of that. Nothing.
You are promised eternal life, not an easy, stress-free life. Your circumstances, financial status, schedule or state of life cannot take that away from you.
In John 10, Jesus is doing most of the talking. He's talking about being the Good Shepherd and states that He is the door of the sheep (v 7) and reiterates that in v 9 where He says that anyone who enters by Him will be saved and find pasture. He tells why the thief comes and then says He has come that they might have life and that they might have it more abundantly. Life eternal.
We Americans often think the Bible speaks to the earthly abundance we enjoy as a nation. Even the poorest among us has options through the government to have needs met with food stamps, housing allowances, etc. Charitable organizations meet needs also.
Third world countries don't have this. Sometimes, there are no options. Sometimes, there is no help and people scrape by while eating things you wouldn't dream of. If John 10 is talking about earthly abundance as this conference is teaching, where is the abundance in a third world country? Doesn't the Bible apply to them?
Ah, but it does! That's the beautiful thing about our Savior, He gives abundant life to all who come to Him - meaning He gives eternal life to even those who live like paupers on the earth. The abundance of Heaven is also theirs.
Praise be!
Stop taking God's Word out of context. If what you're teaching does not apply to every nation and soul on earth, stop teaching and reassess.
I won't be going to that conference.
I rarely go to any for this very reason, they are usually all taking God's Word out of context or speaking on someone else's book, not God's Word. No thanks.
~Tricia
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