TRUE ABUNDANT LIFE

1 John 5:11- And the testimony is this, that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.
What would you consider abundant life? Is it a big house with maybe a summer house at the beach or in the mountains? Or maybe you would throw in a boat or a couple of luxury vehicles? These things are nice but there are plenty of people that have these things and their life is a train wreck. Jesus was obviously describing something quite different from a life with nice things alone. Jesus was describing a quality of life, the life that He Himself knew and had enjoyed from eternity with His Father. True life begins when we taste the Father’s love for us revealed in Jesus and experienced through the Holy Spirit. This is how Jonathan Edwards explained this life.
“God purposed, that man should live in union and communion with him, and partake of that life that he himself lives and communicates it as far as the creature is capable: ‘He hath given us eternal life’ Well! where hath he put it for us to have it? ‘And’ (saith he), ‘this life is in his Son’…. So he gives it unto them, he living by the Father, […] they live by him. So that to express it more fully, the Godhead dwells in the human nature of Christ, and is a quickening Spirit to him, and by virtue of our relation to him, having union with him, he quickens us, and never rests till he hath brought us to that union with God, in our measure and proportion that Christ hath…. We are said to be quickened with Christ, because the same life that Jesus Christ is quickened with, we are; it is called the ‘life of Jesus,’ It is the same life; the same Spirit that quickened him, quickeneth us…If we be quickened truly, we live with the same life that Christ did.”
For the unsaved this quote just sounds like nice words, those who have tasted this love for themselves know what Edwards is describing. Our lives began when Jesus came into our lives. When you are born again you taste the sample of the life Jesus enjoys with His Father in heaven. One day soon we will be totally swallowed up in this life as we step into our eternal reward. In the meantime we are satisfied with the abundant life we enjoy as we draw near to Him.