Life, more abundantly

Jesus sets two intentions side by side so the contrast cannot be missed. The thief comes to take — steal, kill, destroy, the full vocabulary of loss. I am come, He says, that they might have life. Whatever diminishes, drains, and hollows out is not His fingerprint. His fingerprint is life, and then the astonishing extra: more abundantly.

Abundant life gets mistaken for prosperity, but the word means overflowing — life with a surplus. Peace beyond what the moment explains, love with enough left over for difficult people, hope that spills past your own needs. It is a description of quality and depth, not possessions, and it grows in ordinary circumstances the way a well-fed tree grows in ordinary soil.

Worth asking this morning: where have I quietly accepted a stolen version of things — joyless duty, anxious scarcity, a faith gone thin — and called it realism? The Shepherd’s stated purpose for you is larger than that. He did not come to help you scrape by.