"'Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep,but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber. But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he puts forth all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. A stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.' This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.
"So Jesus said to them again, 'Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.'" John 10:1-10 (NASB)
In John 10, Jesus gives us a picture of Himself as a shepherd. Because the next I am statement is I am the good shepherd, I’m not going to focus much on that today. I do want to talk about the life that He wants to give us.
We think we live in a world full of options. In reality, there are only two options. We can go through the Door, or we can not go through the Door. If you don’t go through the Door, you can make any other choice in your life that you want, but you’re living a life in servitude to falsehood and your own lusts and ways of thinking. If you go through the Door, you’re on the path with Jesus. The Door orders us. It makes us who we should be in His eyes. Once we go through the Door, we find that He wants to give us abundant life.
When we read this verse, we often think that it means an abundance of the physical things in life: money, health, possessions. If we simply look at the life of Paul and the other apostles, we know that isn’t exactly true. Paul had some sort of affliction that he called a “thorn in the flesh.” He worked making tents while on his journeys in order to fund his trips, so he certainly wasn’t wealthy. And for all the traveling he did, I can’t believe that he had as many possessions as I have in my small living room!
The abundant life Jesus wants to give us is life empowered by the Holy Spirit. When a believer does life following the guidance of the Holy Spirit and walking in His power, they find that Jesus IS the abundant life.
Believers, begin looking for the blessings of abundant life that we have received by going through the Door. We have the guidance of the God of the universe in the form of the Holy Spirit that dwells inside us, we have an enormous capacity for joy in the midst of struggle, and we have the promise of eternal life with the One who knows us best and made the ultimate sacrifice for us. Thank God for any material blessings He has given you, such as your comfortable house or satisfying job, but keep your eyes on the abundant life that is promised to every Christian.
