The Abounding Life

And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. (2 Corinthians 9:8)

Jesus said, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." (John 10:10).

This well-known promise is sometimes interpreted by some (prosperity preachers) to mean that the Christian life would be full of material prosperity and happiness. The words "abundantly," "abounding," and similar terms all come from the Greek word, which does mean "abundant." But it can also apply to sorrow, as well as happiness.

The Christian's life should be abundant in good works, because of God's saving and keeping grace that He has shown so abundantly toward us. Having been "stablished in the faith," we are to be "abounding therein" (Colossians 2:7). We should also "abound in love." "And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you" (1 Thessalonians 3:12).

But, Saints, we may also experience much sorrow and difficulty in this life. Paul was a good example. "...in labours more abundant, in stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths oft" (2 Corinthians 11:23). We may abound in poverty. For the Christians at Philippi, for example, "in a great trial of affliction the abundance of their joy and their deep poverty abounded unto the riches of their liberality" (2 Corinthians 8:2) Our sufferings can always be aleviated by God's abounding grace. "For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:5). Our God of all grace "is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us" (Ephesians 3:20).