The Life You've Always Wanted
Jesus came to earth and died for your sins – not just so you can go to heaven when you die, but so you can live according to His example here on earth. John 14:6 says, Jesus said to him, I am the Way and the Truth and the Life; no one comes to the Father except by (through) Me (The Amplified Bible). Jesus said that He is the Way, and He modeled the way we should live our lives.
There are actually two kinds of life. The first kind is the breathing, walking around, going to work, getting married, having kids kind of life. This life involves the normal things people do all the time, like paying bills, going to church, saving for retirement, taking vacations, going to weddings and funerals, fearing death and desperately hoping to go to heaven… This is the everyday ordinary life that many people live.
But there's a second kind of life that God offers us. Even though I'm calling it the second kind, it's actually the most important. It's called the zoe life in the Greek, and it means "life as God has life, the life that the Father has in Himself and gave to Jesus, who manifested it to the world."
Get Our Latest News for FREE
This life is the "higher life." And the Bible tells us that if we want the higher life, we are going to have to let go and give up the "lower life" (see Matthew 10:39).
I was born in 1943 and began my life by living the lower kind of life that everyone else was living. And really, things didn't change a whole lot even after I accepted Jesus. I had the zoe seed in my heart but didn't know how to cooperate with it, so I didn't experience it.
It's only been in the last fifteen years or so that I can really say I've started living the kind of life I believe God wants us to live…the kind of life I have always wanted to have. It's the kind of life where you know who you are in Christ. The kind of life where you have stability, you have God's righteousness, you have peace, you have joy… And every day of your life you're bearing good fruit, making a difference in somebody else's life.
So, how can you live this zoe kind of life? How can you have the life you've always wanted? Matthew 10:37 says, He who loves [and takes more pleasure in] father or mother more than [in] Me is not worthy of Me; and he who loves [and takes more pleasure in] son or daughter more than [in] Me is not worthy of Me (The Amplified Bible).
It's easy to read over that verse and not think much of it. But many times we let the people we love keep us from the will of God-we give them a place of priority over God. The verse above is a strong one, but it's critical to zoe living. God is telling us that He has to be first in our lives.
Take a close look at your life on a regular basis; examine your life and take some time to have a meeting with yourself. Be very honest and ask yourself, Is God number one in my life? Am I thinking about God's point of view in every situation? Am I talking about Him to myself and to those around me? Am I being selfish? Am I giving Him enough of my time? Am I serving Him? Am I doing what I should be doing with my finances? Am I using my gifts and talents to serve God? What am I doing on a daily basis to demonstrate that God is number one in my life?
These are hard questions. But if you will be honest with yourself and do what you need to do to make God your number one priority, you'll find yourself living the zoe life. You'll have the life you've always wanted!
