Thursday, February 19, 2015

February 20, 2015

"I am come that you might have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10

Success, someone, self-respect and significance are the four big needs that drive you. It doesn't matter if you are a person of faith, a person who is searching for faith or a person who has no use for faith those four needs still motivate you.

But if you are a Christ-follower, you will have those needs met by God according to His definition.

Significance for the believer is found in learning dependence on God. Spiritual maturity happens opposite of how human maturity does. When you grew from childhood you developed from total dependence on your parents, to interdependence with your parents and then to independence from them. That is healthy and normal growth and development.

But spiritual growth demands that you move from depending on yourself to fully depending on God! That is where you will find the significance that fully satisfies and shapes your being.

Finding significance and satisfaction in God is a huge step toward gaining self-respect. Living in dependence on God allows His grace to deal with what wrong in you and develop His good in you!

You cannot love what you don't respect and since the Great Commandment demands you to "love others as yourself" self-respect is necessary to enable you to love others.

Finding significance and self-respect in your relationship with God opens your heart for Him to love others through you! You were designed and created to share life with others. While there is a hole in your heart that only God can fill, there are also gaps that can only be filled through relationships with family members and friends.

The abundant life God intends for you includes significance found in Him, self-respect found because of Him, relationships with others through Him and success that is glorifying to Him. When you depend on God to help you get right with Him and with yourself and with others, you have found success in your relationships! Success in those three vital areas of relationship inevitably translates into success in other areas of life.

When Jesus announced that He came to give you life in abundance, this is what He is talking about - significance, self-respect, someone, and success!

Are you experiencing the abundance He promises?

Have you found the place of complete dependence on Him?